The Ogham alphabet is thought to be named after the Irish god Ogma. One theory of its origins is that it evolved out of a system of tallies used for accounting. Ogham is also known as or ogham craobh, beth luis fearn or beth luis nion. About 500 Ogham inscriptions have been found in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England dating from between the 4th and 7th centuries AD. Inscriptions closest to the period are similar to Elder Futhark. There are inscriptions in archaic forms of Gaelic and Pictish, which have not been deciphered.
Old European civilization was well-developed in the Balkan peninsula. All species of Ogham trees are natural placenames in Italy, Germany, France, and Switzerland, near seas and continental ice. Measured in years, the formation of Manx forests and peat beds must have spread over a very long period-a time of gradual upheaval by no means confined to this small area, but part of a general movement, to be after wards followed by a depression of the land throughout Great Britain and Ireland, which carried the ancient forests down in some places to below the present sea-level.
Ogham trees with Ilex aquifolium representing holly and Viscum album representing mistletoe. The traditional set of ogham trees seem to be resolutely Celtic, although not necessarily a heritage from the early Indo-Europeans. Indo-Europeans originating in the steppes north of the Black and Caspian seas. Trees were very uncommon in botanical grasslands. Two of the ogham trees are also found in the Germanic runic alphabet: the birch (berkana) and the yew (eihwaz).
A region where the plants of the ogham were best represented, it would be the valley of the Rhine River, home of the Iron Age La Tène culture that is regarded to be ancestral to the Celts. The ogham to cultures of the eastern Mediterranean may be a hemispheric coincidence.
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