Celtic Inscribed Stones Project

Celtic Inscribed Stones Project

The Celtic Inscribed Stones Project is based in the Department of History, and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
The database includes every non-Runic inscription raised on a stone monument within Celtic-speaking areas (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Dumnonia, Brittany and the Isle of Man) in the early middle ages (AD 400-1000). There are over 1,200 such inscriptions. In dealing with such a large corpus limitations of time have meant that, for this version of the database, the entries for Wales, Scotland, Dumnonia, Brittany and the Isle of Man, are fuller than those for Ireland. These problems will be rectified before the final version is released (June 2001). The final release will also see the search facility greatly enhanced.
Information on the stones has been broken down into three main types - SITE, STONE, and INSCRIPTION.
SITE: Includes information on the physical character and/or history of the site.
STONE: Includes information on discovery, location, condition, size, form and decoration.
INSCRIPTION: Includes information on legibility, position, script, linguistics and readings.
Within each of these you can find bibliographic references that are linked to the bibliography
Links to IMAGES of many of the stones can be found within the INSCRIPTION pages.
CISP has given each site, stone and inscription a 'unique identifier' to aid searching. Thus each stone and each inscription from each site has been placed in sequential order beginning with 1. An example of this follows:

CLMAC - This is the five-letter code for the site of Clonmacnoise, Co. Offaly, Ireland.
CLMAC/1 - This is the code for the 1st stone with an inscription from this site.
CLMAC/200 - This is the code for the 200th stone with an inscription from this site.
CLMAC/1/1 - This is the code for the 1st inscription on the 1st stone from this site.

The modes of browsing the database are: SITE, REGION, CISP CODE, PERSONAL NAME, NAME OF STONE (i.e. Men Scryfa) and CORPORA NUMBER. SITE: The sites with inscriptions have been listed alphabetically (including alternative names, and names in the modern Celtic vernaculars). These can be found with links to the main entries through the Site Index - Alphabetical.
REGION: Listings of all the sites with inscriptions have also been grouped by county and country (Ireland is treated as a whole, and Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man are treated individually). These can be found with links to the main entries through the Site Index - Geographical.
CISP CODE: Working on the above explained principle, a list of CISP site codes, with links to the main entries, can be found by looking at the Site Index - CISP code.
PERSONAL NAME: All the personal names within the database have been listed alpabetically (including fragmentary names). These can be found, with links to the main entries, through the Name Index - Alphabetical. This will by-pass the site entry and take you straight to the INSCRIPTION entry.
NAME OF STONE: Some stones, such as Men Scryfa, are also known by a particular name. These can be found, with links to the main entries, through the Stone Index - Named Stones.