Newton Stone facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
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Newton Stone |
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| CIIC ID: | ? |
| CISP ID: | NEWT/1 |
| Country: | Scotland |
| Region: | Newton House, Culsalmond, Aberdeenshire |
| City/Village: | Originally plantation near Shevock toll-bar, currently East side of Newton House. |
| Produced: | Late antiquity |
| Dimensions: | 2.09 × 0.70 × 0.40 m. |
| Ogham letters: | |
| Template:Script/Ogham | |
| Text - Native: | |
| IDDAR[R]NNNFORRENNI[K^P]O[T^C] [C^E] | |
| Text - English: | |
| Iddarrnnn Vorrenn(i) |
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| Other resources: | |
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The Newton Stone is a tall, ancient stone found in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It's special because it has two different kinds of writing carved into it. One writing style is called Ogham, which is an old Irish alphabet. The other writing is a mystery! No one has ever truly figured out what it says or what language it's in.
Some people think the mystery writing might have been added to the stone much later. This could have happened around the late 1700s or early 1800s.
Contents
Finding the Newton Stone
The Newton Stone has been known since 1804. A local nobleman, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, found it. He heard about a "curious monument" from shepherds. It was near a new road being built close to Pitmachie Farm.
Moving the Stone
Later, a person interested in old things, Alexander Gordon, moved the stone. He placed it in the garden of Newton House. This house was about a mile north of where the stone was first found.
Gordon wrote a letter describing where the stone was originally. He said he first saw the stone in 1804. Shepherd boys had found the writing on it the year before. The stone was in a fir tree forest near the Pitmachie Turnpike road. The trees were later cut down, and the stone was moved. In 1883, James Carnegie said the stone was moved to Newton House around 1837.
What's Written on the Stone?
The Newton Stone has two different sets of carvings. The first is an Ogham script. This writing might contain old names. The second writing is the "unknown script." People have been trying to understand it since the early 1800s.
The Ogham writing goes down the left side of the stone. It also crosses part of its front. There are two lines of Ogham, one long and one short. The unknown script is at the top of the stone. It has six lines with 48 characters and symbols. One of these symbols is a swastika.
How Old is the Writing?
The Ogham writing is very old, from a time called Late Antiquity. Experts have wondered if the unknown writing was added much later. It could be a century or more after the Ogham.
One scholar, William Forbes Skene, thought the unknown writing was from the 800s. Others have suggested that the "unknown script" might even be a fake made in more recent times.
Trying to Understand the Mystery Writing
Many people have tried to figure out what the unknown script on the Newton Stone means. It has led to many different ideas and debates.
Early Attempts to Decipher
The first pictures of the Newton Stone's carvings were published in 1814. But no one tried to translate the "unknown script" then. In the 1820s, John Stuart, a professor, talked about the stone. He said the first person to try translating it was Charles Vallancey. Vallancey thought the symbols looked like Latin.
Later, in 1856, it was mentioned that William Hodge Mill from Cambridge University thought the script was Phoenician. The Phoenicians were an ancient people from the Middle East.
Big Debates and Different Ideas
A big discussion about the stone happened in Cambridge in 1862. Arthur Hamilton-Gordon, the Earl of Aberdeen's son, brought drawings of the stone to Cambridge. Dr. Mill, who had passed away, believed the writing was Phoenician. He thought it was a message to a god of health.
However, Thomas Wright disagreed. He thought it was a simpler Latin message. He read the first two lines as "here lies Constantinus." Another expert, Constantine Simonides, agreed with Wright's meaning but thought it was Greek. Other ideas included it being Hebrew or even a language from ancient Bactria.
In 1865, an expert named Alexander Thomson listed five main theories for the unknown script:
- Phoenician (suggested by Nathan Davis, Theodor Aufrecht, William Mill)
- Gaelic (an old Scottish and Irish language)
- Latin (suggested by Thomas Wright, William Vaux)
- Greek (suggested by Constantine Simonides)
- Gnostic symbolism (suggested by John O. Westwood)
Many of the more unusual ideas, like Phoenician or Hebrew, were soon dismissed. People thought Latin or Gaelic were more likely.
Old Gaelic Theory
The Scottish historian William Forbes Skene believed the Ogham and the unknown inscription were very similar. He thought the language was nearly the same. In 1907, William Bannerman expanded on Skene's idea. He suggested the inscription was in Old Irish, an early form of Gaelic.
However, some people still came up with very different ideas. For example, Laurence Waddell suggested it was "Hitto-Phoenician" in 1924. But his work was strongly criticized.
Was it a Forgery?
In 1935, R. A. Stewart Macalister, an expert on ancient inscriptions, had a strong opinion. He believed the Ogham writing was truly ancient. But he thought the "unknown script" was a modern fake. He felt it was made while the stone was hidden in the forest.
Macalister even joked that the discussions about the Newton Stone were like "disconnected runaway knocks" on a door. This meant he thought the different theories were random and not connected.
However, other archaeologists disagreed. In 1956, C. A. Gordon visited the stone. He first thought Macalister might be right. But after looking closely, he changed his mind. He became sure the inscription was genuine and ancient. W. Douglas Simpson also disagreed with Macalister's idea that the unknown inscription was modern.
A Numerical Idea
In 1984, Anthony Jackson, a professor, suggested a new way to look at the stone. He thought people should stop trying to translate the writing as a language. Instead, he proposed a numerical idea. He believed the symbols might represent numbers.
He said this method wouldn't translate the script like a language. But it could show that the ancient Picts (who lived in Scotland long ago) understood numbers well. Especially if those numbers had a special, mystical meaning to them.
