THe Brus INscription AT ANNAN. 79 
The lettering is of the form known as uncial, used in 
many sepulchral monuments and inscriptions of the late 
thirteenth century; for example, in the epitaph of Eleanor, 
Queen of Edward I. The transliteration presents few diff- 
culties, except that of the last word of the third line. The 
fourth letter may be read as G, distinguished by its straight 
line top from a T, which has a curving head. Various 
methods of interpreting the full word have been offered, but it 
seems necessary to assume that error of some kind has crept 
into the execution by the stonecutter of the inscription. The 
present writer has come to the conclusion that the simplest 
explanation is to suppose that by a mistake of the stone- 
cutter the N and Y have somehow exchanged places, and 
that what should have read SEYGNUR? has been rendered 
SENGYUR. An alternative is that the Y has been cut 
instead of an N, and that the intended form was SENGNUR. 
A better rectification of the situation may perhaps be expected 
and invited from the skill of medieval epigraphists. 
A second question appears to be of less difficulty and of 
less moment. The date 1300 raises too sharply the issue of 
authenticity to admit of much hesitation. (1) It is no real 
part of the inscription, in which a date was not inherent. 
(2) It is obviously quite different in style; it is not like the 
deep-cut original lettering at all—the letters are broad and 
_ deeply chiselled out, and are uniformly accordant with the 
style of the period, while the Arabic numerals® are slightly 
cut, thin, and shallow. (3) The period 1300 may not be im- 
possible for an inscription in Arabic numerals on stone, but 
2 The spelling Seingnur, etc., of date thirteenth century with 
the intrusive ‘‘n’’ will be found, e.g., in Acts Parl. Scot., ed. 
Thomson, i., pp. 76-77, plate of Berne MS.; also in Palgrave’s 
Historical Documents, Scotland, i., pp. 198, 199, date 1297. 
3 These ‘‘ so-called Arabic numerals’’ (for an Indian origin of 
them is now a current hypothesis) have been closely and critically 
examined in Mr G. F. Hill’s Development of Arabic Numerals in 
Europe (1915; Oxford: Clarendon Press). They are first found in 
MSS. of the tenth century, but are not well known until the 
thirteenth. In monuments their occurrence is very rare indeed 
until the fifteenth, the earliest probably being from Wells Cathe- 
dral, exhibited on Plate xvii. of Mr Hill’s book. 
