The striking connection between the Karian and the Spanish alphabet may be connoted with the fact that Strabo, mentioning the Turdetani whom he describes as the most learned tribe of all Spain, says they had reduced their language to grammatical rules, and that for 6000 years they had possessed metrical poems and even laws. Commenting upon this piece of precious information, Lardner ironically observed that although the Spaniards eagerly seized it as a proof of their ancient civilisation, they are sadly puzzled how to reconcile these 6000 years with the Mosaic chronology. He adds that discarding fable, we find nothing in their habits and manners to distinguish them from other branches of that great race, except, perhaps, a superior number of Druidical remains.[14]
This “except” is noteworthy in view of the fact that the Celtiberian alphabet of Spain is extremely similar to the Bardic or Druidic alphabet of Britain, and also to the hitherto illegible alphabet of Ancient Crete.
Cæsar has recorded that the Druids thought it an unhallowed thing to commit their lore to writing, though in the other public and private affairs of life they frequently made use of the Greek alphabet. That the Celts of Gaul possessed the art of writing cannot be questioned, and that Britain also practised some method of communication seems a probability. There are still extant in Scotland inscriptions on stones which are in characters now totally unknown. In Ireland, letters were cut on the bark of trees prepared for that purpose and called poet’s tables. The letters of the most ancient Irish alphabet are named after individual trees, and there are numerous references in Welsh poetry to a certain secret of the twigs which lead to the strong inference that “written” communication was first accomplished by the transmission of tree-sprigs.
The alphabets illustrated on pages 14 and 15 have every appearance of being representations of sprigs, and it is a curious fact that not only in Ireland, but also in Arabia, alphabets of which every letter was named after trees[15] were once current.
Fig. 1.—From Celtic Researches (Davies, E.).
CELTIBERIAN ALPHABET, SHEWING THE DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERS FOUND ON THE COINS OF TARRACONENSIS AND BÆTICA.