The Chinese seals of Ireland
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.
"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.""
- Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. 1 (1836-1840), Royal Irish Academy (1841), Internet Archive scan proceedingsofroy01roya
- The story of the Chinese seals found in Ireland, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Cambridge University Press (Imre Galambos, 2008)