The Ogam alphabet consists of twenty letters. They are markings upon vertical lines, read upward along those lines with breaks between words. The alphabet is believed to originate with Ogma, prince of the Tuatha de Danaan, during the reign of Bres in the late fourth millennium B.C. The name 'Ogam' is thought to be a corruption of 'Ogmaan', meaning 'of Ogma'.
In the twelfth century A.D. there was a movement against religious alternatives, perhaps in reaction to the Cathars and the Templar Knights, magian Israelites who offered a different version of Christianity. The Germanic Church banned the use of Ogam in an attempt to stifle their alternative priesthood. The wizardly Faan and Danaan monks were removed, but were allowed to transcribe the histories of the island kingdoms into the Roman alphabet. Theirs are the oldest versions which survive today. Before that time there had been whole libraries of Ogam books in Ireland. These books had been bound at the spines in the manner which we use today, and the pages had been sheets of beaten bark.
At Horse Creek in West Virginia, a petroglyph inscription has been found using a northern African alphabet closely related to island Ogam. The language of the inscription is Euskaric, which linguist Edo Nyland claims was the pre-Christian language spoken across Europe, stamped out during the 'witch hunts' (the holocaust which killed off the Faan). The only surviving Euskaric language is spoken by the Basques of the Pyrenees. Nyland says that Ogam really originated in north Africa, and that the name is derived from the words 'property of the Goddess' in Euskaric.
Ogam inscriptions found in Europe record a Euskaric language similar to Basque, and Nyland claims that Euskaric was stifled in Ireland when the indigenous monks were replaced. These monks were descendants of Faan and Athenians and had ties to the Coptic Church. Nyland believes that the story about Ogma was made up (to hide the Coptic connection, perhaps) and indeed there is proof that Ogam predates Ogma's time. This proof comes from Marija Gimbutas, a specialist in very ancient Europe, and she has found a precursor to Ogam script dating back to 5300 B.C.
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