The discovery of small stone carved with an early form of Celtic script has caused excitement among archaeologists after being dug up in a garden.
It was found by geography teacher Graham Senior in Coventry during lockdown in 2020 while he was weeding, but its true value was only recently understood.
Dating back possibly as far as the 4th Century, the stone’s Ogham script features a series of lines inscribed on three of its sides, and experts are trying to understand their full meaning.
Teresa Gilmore, finds liaison officer for Staffordshire and West Midlands said: “It’s an amazing find, we’re very lucky.”
She added: “Most Ogham inscriptions you generally find in the more Celtic areas - Scotland, Ireland and down in Cornwall - you don’t generally get them down in the Midlands.”
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Mr Senior said his theory was that it could have been a keepsake, possibly carried by a Roman soldier.
“It’s a very tactile thing - just feels right as if it was meant to be held,” he said.
The piece of sandstone measures just 11cm (4 inches) in length and is believed to have been carved sometime between the 4th and 6th Century AD.
Ms Gilmore said another theory was that it could have been used by Irish tradesmen to make contact with each other.
Is it just me or is there an untranscribed vowel in the “mal dumcail” inscription? Looks more like “maul” than “mal” to me
Yes - it is included in the caption for the photo on the Beeb’s page: Mael Dumcail - a single line for the A and then four for the E.
Well spotted - It’s an “e” which is his they got “Mael Dumcail”. While I’d like it to be early evidence for Darth Maul, it definitely looks like four lines, not three.
