Uncanny Atlas
Browse/Something Left Behind/The Chinese seals of Ireland
Disputed

The Chinese seals of Ireland

WhereThis has no location, and never had one.
DoorSomething Left Behind
Our judgementObscurity 4 of 6

J. Huband Smith described to the Royal Irish Academy a set of Chinese seals found in Ireland, all alike, each a cube with a seated animal on top.

The Royal Irish Academy's Proceedings record Mr. J. Huband Smith showing members one of the seals, along with wax impressions of several more. Every seal was a perfect cube with an animal, probably an ape, sitting on top as a handle. They matched so closely in size and look that only the characters cut into the base told them apart. Beyond the fact that they had turned up in Ireland, little was known about them.

Charles Fort retold the paper in The Book of the Damned. He puts the number at about a dozen and adds that the inscriptions were said to be in a very old class of Chinese characters.

Imre Galambos went back over the case in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2008. He notes that the seals were spread widely and turned up in odd spots, among them an orchard, a cave and bogs. Once the characters were read as Chinese seal script, people put forward colourful theories for how seals said to be so old had reached Ireland: the Phoenicians, ancient Irish tribes returning from China, or Irish monks coming back from the Middle East in the Middle Ages.

From the primary source
"A paper was read by Mr. J. Huband Smith, descriptive of about a dozen Chinese seals that had been found in Ireland. They are all alike: each a cube with an animal seated upon it. "It is said that the inscriptions upon them are of a very ancient class of Chinese characters.""
Charles Fort (1919), Project Gutenberg ebook #22472, The Book of the DamnedRead the source →
Also told in
The one rule

Every entry says what kind of claim it is.

Claimed sightingSomeone reported seeing it. The entry records the report and takes no side.
FolkloreA story carried by a community, with no single origin to point at.
Hoax, provenMade up to fool people, and exposed. The test is intent: the maker wanted it believed.
FictionMade openly as fiction. If people later believed it, the entry tells that story; the label stays.
DisputedSomething happened. What it was is still argued over by the people who've studied the record.
Religious traditionHeld as doctrine by living believers. Not ours to grade.
Provenance · shown like this

Some entries are living belief, like a rite still practised or a place people still hold sacred. A label alone can't say that, so these entries carry a provenance line wherever they appear, and their reading list starts with the community's own voice.