Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Fresh from the Kiln!


Nothing is more exciting than opening the kiln door! You never know what you're going to find as the glazes never turn out the same way twice.

Our newest addition to our earthenware line, is our Old Irish Blessing Stone Pendants. These pendants were made to look like the Buckquoy spindle whorl, which was excavated in Buckquoy, Birsay, Orkney, Scotland in 1970. The old Irish Ogham inscription is believed to date back to the 8th century.

According to Wikipedia, the inscription was once used as positive proof that the Pictish language was not Indo-European, being variously read as

E(s/n)DDACTA(n/lv)IM(v/lb)
(e/)(s/n/)DDACTANIMV
(e/)TMIQAVSALL(e/q)

however, in 1995 historian Katherine Forsyth reading

ENDDACTANIM(f/lb)

claimed that it was a standard Old Irish ogham benedictory message, Benddact anim L. meaning "a blessing on the soul of L.". The stone from which the whorl was made, and on which the inscription was written, is native to Orkney.

We are still in the process of photographing these new pendants, so please keep checking our Good Dirt Jewelry Etsy shop for new additions. Our other earthenware pendants that are still located in our Grizzly Mountain Arts Etsy shop will soon find their new home at the Good Dirt Jewelry shop in the very near future.