AMERICA’S FIRST CHRISTMAS CARD
The initial lines of the inscription read:
”A happy season is Christmas, a time of joy and goodwill to all people.”
It was December 22, 1982 when a small group of people in Wyoming Country, West Virginia watched the dawn's first rays of sunlight wash slowly across a black panel of rock on the face of a cliff to reveal the text of the first line inscribed there in the ancient Celtic language called Ogam.
They listened to a spoken translation of the aged text to be seen in those strange markings on stone. It is one of the strange petroglyphs to be viewed in sections of West Virginia along the Kentucky border.
Then, as the morning light crept cross the slab of rock the voice continued with the second line:
” A virgin was with child. God ordained her to conceive and be fruitful. Behold, a miracle!”
There was yet a third line to be read:
”She gave birth to a son in a cave. The name of the cave was the Cave of Bethlehem. His step-father gave him the name of Jesus, the Christ, Alpha and Omega. Festive season of prayer.”
Other translations of the text vary, of course, and are not so formal as this one by the authority on the subject, one Barry Fell who has written widely of the amazing discoveries. He and others who have studied these inscriptions, are confident they were the handiwork of visitors to the area from Ireland in the time of St. Brenan in the 6th or 7th Century A.D. Other studies point more definitely to an unknown Gnostic monk traveling with the Brenan party, who would have been aware of both use of the Irish “Iron” language and of the Christian traditions.
There are several other small examples of this type of work and the largest known Ogam inscription in the world - which we have talked about in these pages before - is to be found in nearby Logan County, West Virginia. It is called the”Horse Creek Petroglyph” and the story old on it details a large-scale buffalo hunt b primitive people. It is difficult to ascertain how many of these ancient markers might have been destroyed by strip mining operations in the area but there have been some such losses. A few have been moved to safer locations when discovered.
In addition to these strange Ogam language markers, and archaeologist name Robert Pyle, discovered in 1989, about thirty feet from a petroglyph called “Cook”, a burial place which has been proved to have been the final resting lace for some European. Both carbon-fourteen and DNA testings place the burial at around 700 A.D.
West Virginia - ”wild and wonderful”....in so many exciting ways!
A.L.M. December 22, 2002 [c454wds]
