542 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE EAKLIEST WRITING IN FRANCE. 



By M. GABRIEL DE MORTILLET. 



nnHE ancient Celts and Gauls of France had no real letters. A 

 -L few Celtiberian pieces of money bear characters belonging to 

 the Phoenician and Carthaginian alphabets. In Cisalpine Gaul we 

 find Gallic written in ancient Italian characters. The Greeks, when 

 they founded Massilia and spread themselves along the Mediter- 

 ranean coast of France, brought their language and writing into the 

 country. The Gauls took advantage of this, and many Gallic in- 

 scriptions in Greek characters occur scattered through the south of 

 France, among much more numerous inscriptions in the Greek lan- 

 guage and character. 



When the Romans came, the Latin alphabet rapidly took the 

 place of the Greek, and the few Gauls that continued faithful to the 

 old tongue used Latin characters in engraving the inscriptions they 

 have left us. Similar changes took place in Gallic pieces of money. 

 Excepting the Celtiberian coins with their Semitic legends and char- 

 acters, which are found only in a very limited district in the south- 

 west of France, Gallic coins, when they have characters upon them, 

 may be classified as those with Greek and those with Latin legends. 

 The former are very abundant in the south of France, and extend, 

 growing more rare, as we go on into the center and north. Gallic 

 coins with legends in Roman characters gradually become more 

 numerous, and were general after the conquest of Gaul by Julius 

 Caesar, some of the Gallic populations having only begun to coin 

 money during the earlier period of the Roman occupation. 



There are some evidences of the use of a symbolical and hie- 

 roglyphical writing before alphabetical writing. On some of the 

 megalithic monuments, principally in Morbihan, stones are found 

 bearing incised engravings, and sometimes sculptures in relief. Are 

 the engravings simply ornamental motives, have they a symbolical 

 meaning, or are they hieroglyphic emblems? Opinions are divided. 

 The supports of the large and handsome dolmen of the little island 

 of Gavrinis, Morbihan, are filled with engraved lines running into 

 one another and conforming to the shape of the stone or to its compo- 

 sition — all the siliceous and consequently very hard parts being free 

 from them. This indicates a simple ornamentation or decoration 

 executed without any special plan made in advance, according to the 

 nature and form of the stone worked upon. Yet, among the lines 

 of the apparently fanciful ornament a number of polished stone 

 hatchets are very distinctly represented. In all the other dolmens 

 the carvings are much less numerous and not so close. Sometimes 



