The Illustrated Archaeologist Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 Excerpt: ...and Wales. The early inscribed monuments and ecclesiastical buildings at Llantwit Major are perhaps the most interesting to be found throughout the whole Principality, yet these are dismissed in a few pages, and the rest of the book is devoted to copious extracts from the legendary lives of Welsh Saints, which might have been made equally well by anyone possessing a moderate amount of leisure and a reader's ticket for the British Museum Library, without any necessity for taking the trouble of visiting Llantwit. Certainly Dr. Fryer has illustrated his little volume with reproductions of several photographic views taken on the spot, apparently with a Kodak, but we search in vain amongst the letterpress for a detailed account of the buildings and monuments shown in the views. Even the short description of the crosses is not accurate, for Dr. Fryer repeats the absurd blunder of Iolo Morganwg, made nearly a century ago, in reading the proper name Ebisar, on the cross in Llantwit churchyard, as excisor, and translating it engraver This error, that one would have thought could hardly have been made by a boy in the lowest form at a public school, has been repeated over and over again even by persons who have taken a University degree and ought to know better. Dr. Fryer also again gives publicity to the ridiculous Llyfr Pren, with its so-called Bardic alphabet. This piece of sham antiquity Iolo Morganwg evolved out of his own inner consciousness, and even went so far as to manufacture an actual specimen for the purpose of deceiving the more credulous of his countrymen. There is one specimen of the "Llyfr Pren" in the Cardiff Museum, and another in the British Museum. The latter is placed well out of sight at the bottom of one of the cases in the Mediaeval ...