Book Description

Excerpt from A Vindication of the Celtic Inscriptions on Gaulish and British Coins Several literary enigmas of great moment have been solved within the last century. The key to the Egyptian hieroglyphics has been obtained The arrow-headed writing of the east has been read; and the inscriptions of Persepolis and the Assyrian marbles have been decyphered: and the Ph nician speeches inserted in the play called the P nulus, that is, the "Carthaginian" of the old Roman comedian Plautus, have been shown to be in close affinity with the Gaelic, or modern Irish language. Celtic inscriptions on ancient moneys, only seem to remain, as supplying much chance of further literary development, which, as far as they can be decyphered, have the appearance of being of high ethnological interest, in illustrating the habits and customs and the political ideas and biasses of the ancient Celts, both in this country and on the continent. The Welsh, Irish, and Bretons represent the Celts at the present day; but this same Celtic race once held possession of the whole of Great Britain and Ireland in the time of Julius Caesar, and the inscriptions of numerous specimens of their coins when correctly read, are found to apply to various chiefs and kings reigning in this our native land, mentioned by the old Roman historians, Dion Cassius, Tacitus, and Suetonius, and in one instance, as is supposed by Caesar himself. The Celts used Roman characters in their coinage, as it should be noted; rarely Greek. The political style and tone of the ancient Gaulish and British chiefs are given out plainly enough by our Celtic coin inscriptions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."