Help with Translating Ancient Mysterious Artifact

Hi all,

I was at my brother in law's house for Thanksgiving and he has a nice collection of antiquities. One in particular caught my eye and started a discussion on druid, avery stones in the UK, etc. It looks like mortar and is about 10 inches wide.

Anywho, I took some pictures of the writing and if anyone (Zorgon this means you) could tell me what this means, I would appreciate it.



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reply to post by ArcAngel



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In the middle of the indention it looks to me like a light bulb, But I could be wrong.

reply to post by ArcAngel


This piece is simply amazing. I would be curious to learn what these symbols represent. Thanks for posting.

reply to post by ArcAngel


it says "if your reading this you are stupid"
nah but seriously, this looks cool and hopefully someone can shed some light so i thought i would give the thread a bump

My guess is that It looks like a mortar/pestel, something you used to grind herbs.

It's interesting that there is what looks like our alphabet , I can make out an A, P , N ,M , Z , W . ??

My first glance at the second picture reminds me of the 13 original zodiac signs.
Maybe it was just a mortar decorated with symbols from the time period.

In their language, of course.



Nice find!

Do you have any more information on this particular item... Where did your brother get it? and does he know anything about its origins?

suspect an old hoax ...
it appears to be a combination of writing styles .. from 3 different cultures in different era's that can make out...

nice piece for a display in curio cabinet or on a coffee table...

when druids did write it was usually in greek,but they also used the Ogham letters,which doesn't seem to be the case here.it does have some 'rune' like symbols,and perhaps greek/latin mixed in as well.i'm not an expert,but i know theres no ogham in there.cool piece though.

reply to post by ArcAngel


Looks like Cherokee alphabet

reply to post by ArcAngel


Looks to me like tools to turn grains into flour. Have not seen ones with such markings on them though interesting find your brother has there.

reply to post by luciddream



Herbs would not need such a big base to grind. Looks like it was used to grind hard grains into flour. I could be wrong, however I do not think that I am.

I have to agree with others it seems like a mix of alphabets.. i see rune symbols and also Greek letters..

The symbol of a circle with a dot in the centre (which appears a few times) is an astrological symbol for the sun.. in Egyptian glyphs its a symbol for the sun god Ra.. it means gold in alchemy and emotional restraint in Freemasonry.. It is also used as the symbol for air in some wicca and native american cultures

There are also couple of other symbols that could be from alchemy.. but it just look like its a bit jumbled up to me with various letters from different alphabets.

Yes, it appears to be a mortar -- possibly used for grinding grains or perhaps for preparing herbs and minerals for medicinal purposes. As to the writing, the symbols look runic but they're rather odd because while some (for example) appear to be Gothic -- such as hwair (the "O" symbol with the dot in the middle) and othal [a.k.a. othala or odal] (crossover single upper loop) -- some others don't seem from that group. But it could be that whoever carved them knew several types of runes and wanted to create a text or message whose meaning would be hard to derive.

If that was the case, then it suggests a ritual purpose to this item, rather than it simply being utilitarian. Actually, having letters carved inside a mortar is not the smartest thing to do if you want to use it for common, everyday purposes, so the ritual nature becomes more likely.

However I am by no means a master at this kind of thing. Just posting my view on it. Hopefully someone will come along who can actually decipher it.

Mike

reply to post by Misterlondon

Saw your post after I posted mine. I agree, this looks like a mixture. It would be helpful if we had a bit more info about where this piece came from. The region would probably tell us quite a lot.

Mike

Originally posted by JustMike
reply to post by Misterlondon

 

Saw your post after I posted mine. I agree, this looks like a mixture. It would be helpful if we had a bit more info about where this piece came from. The region would probably tell us quite a lot.

Mike

I fully agree.. thats the reason i asked in my original post.. without a little more info its quite difficult to make an assumption.

(Not that it really matters but it is a tad annoying when someone makes a thread like this, then goes offline)

reply to post by ArcAngel


OP. If you will U2U "Byrd", she can probably shed some light on this for you. She is, after all, an archaeologist.

i'm personally not convinced it's a grinding stone. for one thing they're never quite that concave as far as i remember, and secondly, why would anybody inscribe the inside of a grinding stone? surely they'd already be aware that it would grind down. the lack of grinding on the inscription leads me to think it's for another purpose entirely.

Originally posted by ArcAngel
Hi all,

I was at my brother in law's house for Thanksgiving and he has a nice collection of antiquities. One in particular caught my eye and started a discussion on druid, avery stones in the UK, etc. It looks like mortar and is about 10 inches wide.

Anywho, I took some pictures of the writing and if anyone (Zorgon this means you) could tell me what this means, I would appreciate it.

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This is the Gothic Alphebet. Dates from around 4th Century. From the looks of it, I would say it is real. The circle with a dot means the sun. It's a basic system borrowed from Greek. It could have alchemical meaning.