Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History: An address, delivered before the New York Historical; Society, at its forty-second anniversary, 17th November 1846Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
History
Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History: An address, delivered before the New York Historical; Society, at its forty-second anniversary, 17th November 1846
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
America -- Antiquities; Indians -- Origin
authenticity of the discovery, took duplicate copies of the inscription
in wax, and transmitted them to Europe. The inscription consists of
twenty-three letters, together with a pictorial device, apparently a
man's head on a pike. It is made on a small hard stone, of an oval
shape, and was found in a vault along with human bones, sea shells, and
various ornaments of a rude age. Professor Charles Rafn, of Copenhagen,
deems the character Celtiberic. I have recently received a memoir from
M. Jomard, at Paris, (the sole survivor of Bonaparte's scientific corps
in Egypt,) who considers it as of Lybian origin, and compares it with
an inscription found on the African shores of the Mediterranean at
Dugga. It relieves, to some extent, the discrepancy existing between
these two learned men to remark that the Dugga inscription consists of
two parts, one of which is pronounced Celtiberic by Hamaker, and that
the generic character of the strokes in this alphabet are preserved to
some extent even in the true Libyan. Since the receipt of Mr. Rafn's
paper, the number of characters on the Grave Creek stone which are
identical with the Celtiberic, as published in the first volume of the
Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, has been shown to be
fifteen, leaving but eight to be accounted for. By comparison, ten of
our Aonic characters of Grave Creek correspond with the Phoenician;
four with the ancient Greek; four with the Etruscan; six with the
ancient Gallic; seven with the old Erse; five with the Runic proper,
and thirteen with the Druidical, or old British, as it existed before
the invasion of Julius Caesar. The latter are, however, almost
identical, so far as the comparison goes, with the Celtiberic. Six of
the characters, which are several times repeated, however, exist in the
right hand portion of the Lybian inscription at Dugga, but the
introduction, in other parts of the monumental text, of the Arabic
element of notation by curved lines, tends to lessen the probability of
the Lybian origin of our western inscription, while it adds additional
force to the suggestions of Mr. Rafn. It is also to be noticed that M.
Jomard employed an inaccurate copy of the inscription which was
furnished him some years ago by Mr. Vail.
[6] Vide Notes on the Iroquois.
This comprehends the European branch of the obscure period of our early
continental history, and includes all the nations known to have put in
claims to share, or to anticipate, the glory of the discovery of the
continent by Columbus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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