Gardener uncovers odd rock and finds 1,600-year-old inscription. Now, it’s on display
A gardener in the United Kingdom uncovered an “unusual” rock with markings on it — and found a 1,600-year-old inscription. Now, the artifact is on display.
“I found the stone while I was gardening during the lockdown in May 2020. It caught my eye as I was clearing an overgrown part of the garden,” Graham Senior told the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in a May 10 news release.
The skinny brown stone is just over 4 inches in length and has several vertical lines carved into one side, a photo shared by the museum on Facebook shows.
“At first, I thought it was some kind of calendar,” Senior said. Intrigued, he reported the find to archaeological officials.
Officials identified the stone as having a 1,600-year-old inscription written in ogham, an early Irish alphabet used in the early medieval period, the museum said.
“Ogham is highly unusual among world writing systems, consisting solely of parallel lines in groups of 1-5,” the museum said. About 400 stones have been found with ogham inscriptions, the oldest dating back to the fourth to sixth centuries A.D. The purpose of these stones is unknown, but experts suspect some rocks were used to settle land disputes.
The ogham inscription found by Senior in his garden in Coventry reads “MALDUMCAIL / S / LASS,” Teresa Gilmore, an archaeological official, said in the release.
“The first part of the inscription relates to a person’s name: Mael Dumcail,” Gilmore said. “The second part is less certain.”
Officials don’t know how the artifact ended up in Coventry, the museum said.
Most ogham stone carvings have been found in Ireland and along the coast of Wales, several hundred miles west of Coventry.
Senior described the 1,600-year-old artifact as “incredible.” He donated it to the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum where it is on display for the first time as part of the “Collecting Coventry” exhibit that runs until April 2025.
Coventry is a roughly 110-mile drive northwest from London.
This story was originally published May 13, 2024 at 7:14 AM with the headline "Gardener uncovers odd rock and finds 1,600-year-old inscription. Now, it’s on display."
