![ancient celtic glyphs ancient celtic glyphs](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/34/a2/37/34a237ac8112311c69958d28a1d7eb02.jpg)
Knowth alone has about 45% of all the art known from Irish tombs and nearly 30% of all the megalithic art in Europe. It occurs particularly on the structural stones of the tombs but also occurs on some artefacts that have been found within and around them. Some of it is spectacular: wonderful combinations of spirals, lozenges, chevrons, triangles and arrangements of parallel lines and arcs. One of the more famous ones is Brú na Bóinne, with the 3 great passage tombs of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth.īuilt by the Dagda, so they say (and you can read some fascinating stories on that guy right here), these monuments have stood in Ireland for over 5,000 years, and when they were being built, symbolic artwork was a big part of their construction. It’s back to the stone carving folks, and this time, let’s look at our monuments. What other Pagan Symbols were used in ancient Ireland?
![ancient celtic glyphs ancient celtic glyphs](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c2/07/35/c20735af887cfa3519d7c54ae6d2d994.jpg)
![ancient celtic glyphs ancient celtic glyphs](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/93/64/e1/9364e177fe237c8034ddbfc8b413a243.jpg)
You can find out more about the Ogham Alphabet here.
![ancient celtic glyphs ancient celtic glyphs](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/43/1a/96/431a9615bb77b1a23524ec4d9738f5d3.jpg)
It was designed for the Irish language, so we can place in at pre Christian times, probably, through that – if it was just made for the monks, they would more like have designed it through Latin. With regard to how old this Celtic alphabet might be: we know it existed as a monument script (there’s that early stone carving), in the 400s CE. Ogham appears both carved in stone, and in multiple manuscripts, so it’s ticking both boxes there. The best example of this, I’d say, is the Ogham alphabet – our Celtic writing system (and I use Celtic here, and through this post, because much of what we have in Ireland on this topic is common across other Celtic cultures). That being said though, everything in Ireland is a little bit Pagan, even still… so we can put that one aside, now that we’re aware of it, and look at the sources. Now, either of those may have been influenced by Christianity, and so not count as truly Pagan, perhaps. When we look back a little further into our tradition and lore, we have 2 main sources for native Irish Pagan symbols – stone carvings and manuscripts.