Graves—Remarks on an Ogam Monument. 281 
‘¢ PosrscRIPT. 
“‘T ought also to remark, that if -os was the termination of an 
ancient Celtic genitive, the same might be said of -as, which appears 
as the termination of just as many Ogam names, all of which may be 
said with equal reason to be genitives; but if my view of the matter 
be correct, both of these terminations might have been naturally sug- 
gested to the minds of the persons who exercised their ingenuity in 
giving cryptic forms to the Celtic names which they inscribed on Ogam 
monuments, if these seanachies had been acquainted with the forms 
of the Greek and Hebrew proper names occurring in the Coptic or 
other Oriental versions of Holy Scripture. 
“Tf this question as to the origin and use of the Ogam termina- 
tion -os could be settled by the evidence of a single inscription, I 
might be contented to refer to one of which I gave an account to the 
Royal Irish Academy in the year 1856. On that occasion I described 
a monument found by the Rev. James Goodman near Ballywiheen, in 
the county of Kerry, and bearing the inscription 
TOGITTACC MAQI SAGARETTOS, 
which I interpreted as 
TOICTHEACH FILII SACERDOTIS. 
“Now, I can hardly believe that any scholar will question the 
following etymological equivalence :— 
Sacerdos = Sacerd = Sagat = Sagarettos. 
‘< Tf the process of derivation thus indicated be correct, this Saea- 
RETTOs, so far from being a genuine primeval Celtic word, is nothing 
more than an Irish noun or proper name of a comparatively late 
period, pedantically disguised by a Greek termination; and its want 
of genuineness is but little aggravated by the fact that the word with 
the nominative ending is made to do duty in grammatical regimen as 
a genitive. But as I have been led to notice this inscription, I may 
be allowed to refer to it as furnishing an instance of one of those 
artifices by which proper names were metamorphosed with a view to 
render the reading of them difficult to the uninitiated. As I identify 
ro@irracc with rorcrHEACH, you will perceive that I regard the duph- 
cation of a consonant as intended in certain cases to denote its aspira- 
tion or some other kind of modification. I shall be able to adduce 
other instances of this kind, such, for example, as cc for a, BB for P, 
DD for Du. © 
‘‘ What I have said with respect to the similar forms of the cross 
found in Ireland and Egypt must be developed by a comparison of the 
sketches in my note-book with the drawings made by Mr. Du Noyer, 
Mr. Wakeman, and others; but by far the most interesting of the 
results which I shall have to communicate in connexion with this 
222 
