VERY OLD GRAVESTONES.
Although, for reasons already explained or surmised, the gravestones
in our burial-grounds seldom exceed an age of 200 years, there has
probably been no time and no race of men in which such memorials were
unknown. Professor Dr. John Stuart, the Scottish antiquary,[15] opines
that "the erection of stones to the memory of the dead has been
common to all the world from the earliest times," and there are many
instances recorded in the Old Testament, as when Rachel died and Jacob
"set a pillar upon her grave" (Genesis, chapter xxxv. verse 20); and
another authority, Mr. R. R. Brash,[16] in a similar strain, comments
on the sentiment which appears to have been common to human nature
in all ages, and among all conditions of mankind, namely a desire to
leave after him something to perpetuate his memory, something more
durable than his frail humanity. This propensity doubtless led him in
his earliest and rudest state to set on end in the earth the rough and
unhewn pillar stone which he found lying prostrate on the surface, and
these hoar memorials exist in almost every country.
[Footnote 15: "The Sculptured Stones of Scotland" (two volumes), by
John Stuart, LL.D., Secretary to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries.]
[Footnote 16: "Ogam Inscribed Monuments," by R.R. Brash; edited by G.M.
Atkinson.]
A remarkable instance is afforded by Absalom, the son of David, who
himself set up a stone to record his memory: "Now Absalom in his
lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in
the king's dale: for he said, I have no son to keep my name in
remembrance: and he called the pillar after his own name: and it is
called unto this day, Absalom's place" (2 Samuel, chapter xviii. verse
18).
Professor Stuart indeed declares that there is no custom in the
history of human progress which serves so much to connect the remote
past with the present period as the erection of pillar stones. We meet
with it, he says, in the infancy of history, and it is even yet, in
some shape or other, the means by which man hopes to hand down his
memory to the future. The sculptured tombs of early nations often
furnish the only key to their modes of life; and their memorial
stones, if they may not in all cases be classed with sepulchral
records, must yet be considered as remains of the same early period
when the rock was the only book in which an author could convey his
thoughts, and when history was to be handed down by memorials which
should always meet the eye and prompt the question, "What mean ye by
these stones?"
To such remote antiquity, however, it is probably undesirable to
follow our subject. It will no doubt be thought sufficient for this
essay if we leave altogether out of view the researches which have
been made in the older empires of the earth, and confine ourselves to
the records of our own country. Of these, however, there are many,
and they are full of interest. In date they probably occupy a period
partly Pagan and partly Christian, and it has been conjectured that
all or most of those discovered had their source in Ireland, with
a possibility of an earlier importation into Ireland by Icelandic,
Danish, or other peoples. Many of these stones have been found buried
in the ruins of old churches, and most of them may be supposed to owe
their preservation to some such protection. The drawings of one or two
may be given as samples. Those here sketched (Figs. 100 and 101) are
in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, and occupy
with others a considerable space, being well displayed to shew the
inscriptions on both sides.[17] It is by the fact of both sides being
written upon that we assign to them the character of gravestones,
that is upright gravestones; but it is also well authenticated by
historical records that the memorial of a Pagan chief in Ireland was a
cairn with a pillar stone standing upon it, and there is little doubt
that the Irish invaders carried the practice with them into Scotland.
It is indeed in Scotland that a large proportion of these stones have
been discovered, and there are more than a hundred of them in the
Edinburgh Museum. In the Museum at Dublin there is also a good
collection, conveniently arranged; but the British Museum in London
has less than half a dozen--only five--specimens. The number in each
of the three museums fairly represents the relative abundance of
such remains in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Marked on a chart
the discoveries are thickly grouped in the North-Western parts of
Scotland, in the South of Ireland, and on the South-Western promontory
of Wales. In Cornwall and Devonshire, along the coast line, there have
been found a goodly few, and the others are dotted sparsely over the
whole kingdom--England, as just indicated, furnishing only a modicum.
[Footnote 17: The National Museum of Antiquities in Queen Street,
Edinburgh, is unequalled by any other collection of British and Celtic
remains. All these memorial stones are carefully catalogued, and
have, moreover, the advantage of being described at length, with
full illustration, in Professor Stuart's copious work (previously
mentioned) on "The Sculptured Stones of Scotland."]
[Illustration: THE BRESSAY STONE FIG. 100.
LUNNASTING AND KILBAR STONES. FIG. 101.
OGAM AND RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS.]
The inscriptions upon such stones, when they are inscribed, are
usually in Ogam or Runic characters. An example of the Ogam writing
is shewn on the edges of the Bressay stone (Fig. 100), and also on
the front side of the Lunnasting stone (Fig. 101a). The Ogam style
was used by the ancient Irish and some other Celtic nations, and the
"Ogams," or letters, consist principally of lines, or groups of lines,
deriving their signification from their position on a single stem,
or chief line, over, under, or through which they are drawn,
perpendicularly or obliquely. Curves rarely occur; but some are
seen in the inscription on the Bressay stone, which has been thus
interpreted by Dr. Graves, Bishop of Limerick: "Bentire, or the Son
of the Druid, lies here." "The Cross of Nordred's daughter is here
placed." This stone was found by a labourer about 1851, while digging
in a piece of waste ground near the ruinous church of Culbinsgarth at
Bressay, Shetland. The design is said to be thoroughly Irish, and the
inscription a mixture of Irish and Icelandic. The stone measures 4 ft.
by 1 ft. 4-1/2 in. by 2 in. It is attributed to the ninth century.
The stone 101a is a slab of brownish sandstone, 44 in. by 13 in. by
11/2 in., from Lunnasting, also in Shetland. It was found five
feet below the surface in 1876, and, having probably lain there for
centuries, was in excellent preservation. The authorities, however,
are unable to make a satisfactory translation. The cross or dagger is
also of doubtful explanation; and Mr. Gilbert Goudie thinks it is
a mere mason's mark. It is, however, admitted on all hands that
the stone is of Christian origin, and probably of the period just
subsequent to the termination of the Roman rule in Britain. It has
been suggested that most of these ancient gravestones were carved and
set up by the Irish missionary monks not earlier than A.D. 580. The
Ogam inscription on the Lumasting stone has been made by one expert to
read:
EATTUICHEATTS MAHEADTTANNN
HCCFFSTFF NCDTONS.
A strange and inexplicable aggregation of consonants.
The stone represented below, 101 _b_, bears an inscription in Runic
characters. Runic is a term applied to any mysterious writing; but
there were three leading classes of "runes"--Scandinavian, German,
and Anglo-Saxon--all agreeing in certain features, and all ascribed
by some authorities to the Phoenicians. The stone 101 _b_ was found in
1865, at Kilbar, Barra, a remote island of the outer Hebrides, off the
north-west coast of Scotland. It measures 6 ft. 5-1/2 in. in
height, and its greatest width is 15-1/2 inches. Mr. Carmichael has
conjectured that it was probably brought from Iona about the beginning
of the seventeenth century, and erected in Barra at the head of a
grave made by a son of McNeil for himself. But it is believed to
have been in any case a Norse memorial in the first instance, though
certainly Christian, for it reads:
"Ur and Thur Gared set up the stones of Riskar.[18] May Christ guard
his soul."
[Footnote 18: Riskar, or Raskar, is a surname of the Norwegians, who
were early settled in the Western Islands and adopted the Christian
faith.--"Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England," by
Dr. George Stephens, F.S.A.]
The Barra stone has on the reverse side a large cross, carved in
plaited bands. Dr. Petrie has pointed out that the cross is not
necessarily indicative of belief, the ancient Danes and other peoples
having used various signs--the cross frequently--to mark their
boundaries, their cattle, and their graves.[19] There is little doubt,
however, that in most of these British and Irish memorials, although
the stones may originally have been Pagan, the cross is typical of
Christianity. We are told that it was not unusual for St. Patrick
to dedicate Pagan monuments to the honour of the true God. On one
occasion, it is related, on the authority of an ancient life of the
Saint, that, on coming to the Plain of Magh Solga, near Elphin, he
found three pillar stones which had been raised there by the Pagans,
either as memorials of events or for the celebration of Pagan rites,
on one of which he inscribed the name of Jesus, on another Soter, and
on the third Salvator, along probably with the cross, such as is seen
on nearly every Christian monument in Ireland. In the same way on
two of five upright pillars in the parish of Maroun, Isle of Man, are
crosses deeply incised. This spot is traditionally associated with St.
Patrick as the place where he preached, and the stones appear to be
remains of a Druidical circle.
[Footnote 19: "Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language." Collected
by George Petrie, and edited by Miss M. Stokes.]
This practice is quite consistent with the principles upon which the
Christian conversion was established by the early missionaries. Thus,
Gregory, in a letter from Rome, in 601, directed that the idolatrous
temples in England should not be destroyed, but turned into Christian
churches, in order that the people might be induced to resort to their
customary places of worship; and they were even allowed to kill cattle
as sacrifices to God, as had been their practice in their previous
idolatry. Hence also arose the system of establishing new churches on
the sites previously held as consecrated by heathen worship.
Of the five old gravestones in the British Museum, four are from
Ireland and one from Fardell in Devonshire. The Fardell stone was
found about the year 1850, acting as a footbridge across a small brook
at Fardell, near Ivybridge, Devonshire--a district once inhabited by
a Celtic tribe. It is of coarse granite, 6 ft. 3 in. high, 2 ft. 9 in.
broad, and from 7 to 9 inches thick. It bears an Ogam inscription on
two angles of the same face, and debased Roman characters on the front
and back. It reads, according to Mr. Brash, in the Ogam, "Safagguc the
son of Cuic;" and, in the Roman, "Fanon the son of Rian."
The three Irish Ogam stones were presented to the British Museum by
Colonel A. Lane Fox, F.S.A., who dug them out of an ancient fort at
Roovesmore, near Kilcrea, on the Cork Railway, where they were
forming the roof of a subterranean chamber. No. 1 cannot be positively
deciphered or translated; No. 2 is inscribed to "the son of Falaman,"
who lived in the eighth century, and also to "the son of Erca," one of
a family of Kings and Bishops who flourished in the ancient kingdom
of Ireland; and No. 3, which is damaged, is supposed to have been
dedicated to a Bishop Usaille, about A.D. 454. All the stones came
probably from some cemetery in the district in which they were found.
It has been remarked that the distribution of these old stones marks
clearly the ancient history of our islands; their frequency or rarity
in each case corresponding accurately with the relations existing in
remote times between Ireland on the one side, and Wales, Cornwall, and
Scotland on the other. Further enquiry into the subject is scarcely to
be expected in this rudimentary work.
To seek for the germ of the gravestone is indeed a far quest. Like the
_ignis fatuus_, it recedes as we seem to approach it. In the sculpture
galleries of the British Museum there are several examples preserved
to us from the ancient Empire of Assyria, and one described as the
"Monolith of Shahnaneser II., King of Assyria, B.C. 850," is almost
the exact counterpart of the headstones which are in vogue to-day. It
stands 5 ft. 6 in. high, is 2 ft. 9 in. wide, and 8 inches thick. Like
the Scottish stones of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it is
inscribed on both faces.