What enigmatic mystery was covered by investigator Charles Fort in his 1919 Book of the Damned and by Arthur C Clarke in his Mysterious World TV Series in 1980 and is exclusive to Ireland? The answer: the Chinese Seals discovered here from 1780 to 1860. For, up to sixty Chinese Seals made of porcelain, embossed and sealed at the base with Chinese writing/inscriptions and capped with a carving of a monkey, were found in many of Ireland's counties including six in Cork, four in Waterford, three in Tipperary, three in Down. What were they and how did they get here?
NOTICES OF CHINESE SEALS FOUND IN IRELAND
A chronicle of the phenomena and the finds was first unveiled for the public in 1850 when Edmund Getty read a paper before the Belfast Literary Society.
Places where they were found included:
- Clonmel, County Tippperary;
- Glenarm Castle, County Antrim, found by Lady Louisa Myrtleville;
- Near a cave at the mouth of Cork Harbour found by T Crofton Croker in 1805;
- Borrisokane, County Tipperary, while a farmer was ploughing a field;
- Killeagh, County Down;
- The bed of the River Boyne, near Clonard, County Meath, in raising gravel;
- A bog near Mountrath, County Laois;
- Clonliffe Parade, Dublin, in 1816;
- Blair Castle, County Cork;
- Cahir Castle, County Tipperary, found by Lady Glengal.
According to a Chinese Grammar of Abel Remusat, it "Showed that the inscriptions on these seals, are those of a very ancient class of Chinese characters, in use since the time of Confucius". And consequently this revelation led to all sorts of theories........
The ancient and oriental connection
Many Irish nationalists of the nineteenth century wanted to portray the Irish people as 'different', 'exotic', not fitting into the European paradigm etc; so such enigmas as the Chinese Seals tickled their fancies no end. They posited that the Irish came from the east, and that the seals were brought here by nomadic Celts or our ancestors. The British Israelites started to grow from the second half of the nineteenth century and the Phoenician hypothesis - that the Phoenicians brought the seals here - fitted their niche adroitly; hence postulating a near eastern, lost tribes hypothesis. (Joseph Huband who did much work previous to Edmund Getty to publicise it, adhered to the Phoenician theory). However, the initial dating of these seals, was open to question. Porcelain didn't exist in the time of Confucius (sixth century BC) and wasn't invented until the seventh century AD. That put the time frame over a thousand years forward but still the writing/inscription was unmistakably and indisputably Chinese so the Oriental/Chinese provenance still held sway! (A translator by the name of Gutzlaff did two translations of the writing in the 1800's).
THE MYSTERY OF HOW THEY ENDED UP IN IRELAND
Recent studies in the 1980's by Jan Chapman of the Chester Beatty Library dated the seals to being produced in the 1600's in China but even if they only date from that time, how they got here, were deposited in such disparate places - definitively having originated in China, and not being found in any other country - still leads to an inextinguishable enigma, like an incandescent candle which refuses to go out - a mystery that has never been solved or deciphered to the present day.
A Few hypotheses were offered:
- That they were hidden in tea chests which were brought back from China. (This is unlikely but for supposition sake, if it were proven to be a plausible scenario, why weren't they found in any other country, particularly Britain?)
- They were brought back by Lord McCartney's Embassy; however, nothing was found in his possessions, to remotely resemble these enigmatic pieces.
The likelihood of anyone going around to these destinations, in many of Ireland's counties and burying them, is highly unlikely, and would be stretching the elastic of plausibility to breaking point. (Although Charles Fort argued in his Book of the Damned of 1919, that they could have fallen off a plane or a balloon at different stages, accounting for the disparate distribution of the finds). So the enigma has remained! Notwithstanding their dating, how did they get here in the first place?
SIMILARITIES AND CONNECTIONS BETWEEN IRELAND AND CHINA?
A curious thought has just occurred to me and the permutations are worth exploring a little:
1) It's a fascinating and intriquing thing, that some Chinese people have taken to Irish music as if it were their own. I once heard my father tell of the time he witnessed two Chinese visitors in a Music Club in Dublin taking the flute and playing the tune they had just heard, back to their bemused onlookers. They explained that they had instantly recognised a Chinese tune and seemed to discern some likeness. Additionally, there is the phenomenon that The Chieftains are like mini Gods in China and as big as Chinatown itself! Mere coincidence and triviality or something more.....? Could there be something at work akin to a subconscious memory of connections from antiquity - similiar to the phenomena of a race memory ? Cultural fusion therein from the ancient past like hands across the threshold of time? (Henry O'Brien in his unusual but intriquing book of 1834, The Round Towers of Ireland, contended that Ireland was a repository for Buddhism and was a Buddhist enclave!).
2) Some years ago, there were REDHAIRED Mummies discovered in western China. What were these Celtic prototypes doing there? Were they ancient wanderers and nomads who had travelled all around there etc? Ref. http://www.burlingtonnews.net/redhairedmummieschina.html
So is it possible that we could be looking at ancient connections between Asia and at least the west?
3) Additionally, there is the legend of Oscar and the Tocharians from the chronicles (see reference below).
THE EGYPTIAN AND NEAR EAST LINK
It's intriquing that the alternative sinologist, Andrew Mair, who studied the aforementioned Chinese Mummies believes that certain characters of the Dead Sea Scrolls conformed to Chinese writing. This could suggest a link between the Near East and China. In the context of Ireland and Egypt, Gaelic mythology alludes to the Milesians having been in Egypt and medieval Irish chronicles refer to a ninth century Irish Monk called Dicuil having travelled to Egypt and back, continuing some already established connection (of course some Egyptian Coptic Monks lived on the west coast of Ireland, particularly the Aran Islands). So could the Chinese Seals have come here some way via Egypt, for instance?
The route that brought these enigmatic seals to Ireland, and the date at which they originated and the time they arrived here, is open to debate and to be mulled over, but how they were deposited and found in such disparate locations in the country is bizarre and incomprehensible to say the least. The enigma of the 60 Chinese Seals found ONLY IN IRELAND from 1780 to 1860 is an unsolved mystery - a mystery pertaining to culture, written alphabets/inscriptions, standardised histories, hidden histories, but also to the serendipity of such oddities being found buried in places off the beaten track like bogs, caves, fields etc. Maybe some day we will find the answer; but Ireland is a mystical isle and it seems only fitting that such a mystical land contains this bizarre and strange enigma.
PS Notices of Chinese Seals found in Ireland is archived in the Gilbert Library, Dublin.
Further PS Some of the seals were exhibited in a vitrine on the upper floor of the National Museum of Ireland in 1980.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/science/16archeo.html
Chinese Turkestan and Tokharians by HF McClintock
