Buckquoy spindle-whorl

The Buckquoy spindle-whorl is an Ogham-inscribed spindle-whorl dating from the Early Middle Ages, probably the 8th century, which was found in 1970 in Buckquoy, Birsay, Orkney, Scotland.^[1] Made of sandy limestone, it is about 36 mm in diameter and 10 mm thick.^[2] It is the only known spindle-whorl with an Ogham inscription.

The inscription was once used as proof that the Pictish language was not Indo-European, being variously read as:

E(s/n)DDACTA(n/lv)IM(v/lb)
(e/)(s/n/)DDACTANIMV
(e/)TMIQAVSALL(e/q)^[3]

However, in 1995 historian Katherine Forsyth reading

ENDDACTANIM(f/lb)

proposed that the inscription was a standard Old Irish ogham benedictory message, Benddact anim L. meaning "a blessing on the soul of L.".^[4] The stone from which the whorl was made, and on which the inscription was written, is likely to have originated in Orkney.^[5]

Description

The whorl was found outside the door of the main room of the large Pictish house. It is 36 mm in diameter and 10 mm thick. It is made of cream-coloured sandy limestone with grains up to 0.5 mm in diameter. The Ogham characters are not arranged around the edge of the whorl, as is usual in most Irish Ogham inscriptions, but on an incised stem line. This winds around the central hole of the whorl.

Notes

^ Ritchie (1970)
^ Forsyth (1995)
^ Jackson (1977) Jackson states that "[a]ll of the readings are wholly unintelligible and cannot be Celtic," and that "[w]e must be content to write off this inscription as unintelligible, like all the other 'Pictish' inscriptions."
^ Forsyth (1995), p. 49.
^ Collins (1977)

References

Collins, G.H. (1995), "Chalk spindle-whorls from Buckquoy, Orkney", Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 125: 222–223
Jackson, Kenneth (1977), "The ogam inscription on the spindle whorl from Buckquoy, Orkney", Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 108: 221–222