Lesson 4: West Virginia Cave Inscription
Reading assignment:
“W.VA. PETROGLYPHS INDICATE PRESENCE OF IRISH A MILLENIUM AGO” (1988). Download here. (Scroll down.)
Mike McCormack, “West Virginia Petroglyph” (1988). Download here.
“Wyoming County Petroglyphs” (2015). Download here.
Barry Fell, “CHRISTIAN MESSAGES IN OLD IRISH SCRIPT DECIPHERED FROM ROCK CARVINGS IN W. VA.” (1983). Download here.
W. Hunter Lesser, “Cult Archaeology Strikes Again: A Case for Pre-Columbian Irishmen in the Mountain State?” (1983). Download here.
Barry Fell’s translation of the Ogam alphabet (medieval Irish):
At the time of sunrise a ray grazes the notch on the left side on Christmas dayA feast-day of the church, the first season of the (Christian) year
The season of the blessed and event of the Savior, Lord Christ (Salvatoris Domini Christi)
Behold, he is born of Mary, a woman
Every year, on December 22, the sun shines on the inscription: the winter solstice.
Edo Nyland’s translation, on the assumption that the Ogam is really in Basque:
The migration passed by like a powerful mirage, quietly undulating and moving unsuspectingly a short distance, peacefully. To bring about a disturbance we advanced rattling branches and shouting. I remember that a whole wave happened to pass by and we fell back in fear (to avoid) the bad-tempered stampede of the frightened herd of bison (moving into) the entrance of the narrow wooden-fenced passage and into the abyss in flight. Come and help! The clan-mother was pleased with our co-operative effort.Club blows in abundant measure (were needed) because many which had fallen into the ravine resisted with obviously broken legs. Brothers, come and help the slaughterer to finish them off.
Having prevented escape by running away, we made the usual preparations by the edge of the stream and happily rejoiced in dividing the welcome riches into three parts by plentiful butchering. At first unaccustomed (to the task) we undeniably had to pay attention. We were as busy as possible and so happily exhausted that (we didn’t notice) the noise of the thunder coming in our direction.
In spite of (being) some distance away, the clan mother, just in time, reached the cattle shelter during a period of silence, to sensibly wait out the approaching thunder. Your dear Friend.
This poses major problems for the critics. First, the letters are real letters. Fell is known as an expert at Ogam Consaine. Second, if the inscription is in Basque, it is a thousand years older than Barry Fell’s proposed date of 600-800 A.D.
In one of the anti-Fell papers linked by the critics of Fell, we read this:
One can only speculate about who inscribed the Wyoming County Petroglyph until researchers accumulate more evidence. West Virginians may never know whether an Irishman, a Berber, an Amerindian or all three made the carvings. But the undeniable fact is that the petroglyph is there, and its decipherment is validated by a natural phenomenon. Ancient history however, has a few insights to contribute to this puzzle.Irish monks possibly reached North America by the sixth century A.D. St. Patrick Christianized the Irish between 432 and 461. By this time the Gaelic people had established a class of learned men, who found a natural place in the Christian establishment. A century after St. Patrick’s arrival, Irish monks and scholars began evangelizing abroad. St. Brendan, an Irish monk, supposedly made a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean from Ireland to Newfoundland on the eastern coast of Canada in the sixth century In modern times Timothy Severin set out to duplicate St. Brendan’s voyage in a leather-hulled sailing boat, built to sixth century specifications. His successful voyage which proved the trip was possible, was reported by National Geographic in December 1977.
The question that American historians never have answered satisfactorily is WHO were the Amerindians? History books gloss over the fact that Americans have an ancient past. European explorers and settlers observed during America’s colonial period that native Americans represented a variety of racial stocks and had developed an amazing range of culture from complex urban societies to primitive family units. But the most striking difference was the number of spoken languages. Ethnologists later estimated that more than 50 unrelated linguistic (language) stocks and 700 distinct dialects were spoken north of Mexico! The linguistic stocks had no common vocabulary or grammatical structure.
This suggests that successive groups of immigrants reached America, beginning in a distant time when hunters crossed the Bering land bridge between Siberia and Alaska and still continuing today. A growing body of convincing information points to an active period of trans-Atlantic crossings beginning about 2500 years ago; these waves of immigrants were absorbed into the American melting pot along with their customs and languages.
This abandons the argument for “the Vikings were first; Columbus was second.” This is a major surrender to Fell, but in the name of criticism.