The Chinese Seals of Ireland

The Chinese seals of Ireland, Fort explains in The Book of the Damned, are “not the things with the big, wistful eyes that lie on ice, and that are taught to balance objects on their noses — but inscribed stamps, with which to make impressions.”

These seals, which appeared to come from China’s ancient past, had been found - often in remarkable circumstances - scattered (or placed?) throughout the remotest parts of the island. About 61 were known of at the time The Book of the Damned was published - and they had long been the subject of much debate. 

I’m publishing a couple of extracts that give the flavour of that debate. The first comes from the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (Vol 1, 1836), one of Fort’s main sources for this item; and the second comes from the The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (Vol. 2, 1873).

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A paper was read by Mr. J. Husband Smith, descriptive of certain porcelain seals, amounting to upwards of a dozen, found in Ireland within the last six or seven years, and in places very distant from each other. 

He exhibited to the Academy one of these seals, with impressions of several others in sealing-wax. He stated that they were all uniform, consisting of an exact cube, having, by way of handle, some animal (probably an ape) seated upon it; and that they were so precisely similar in size and general appearance as to be undistinguishable, except by the characters on the under surface. Little is known respecting these seals beyond the mere fact of their having been found in this country.

An extract from the Chinese grammar of Abel-Rémusat showed that the inscriptions on these seals are those of a very ancient class of Chinese characters, ‘in use since the time of Confucius,’ who is supposed to have flourished ‘in the middle of the sixth century, before J. C.’ The remote period to which these characters are assigned, leaves open a wide field for conjecture as to the time in which these porcelain seals found their way into this country.

The situations in which some of them have been found are remarkable. One was discovered in ploughing a field near Burrisokane, county of Tipperary, in 1832; another was found last year at Killead, in the county of Down; another in the bed of the river Boyne, near Clonard, in the county of Meath, in raising gravel; and a fourth was discovered many years ago at a short distance from Dublin.

From the extreme degree of heat to which they appear to have been subjected, and the consequent vitrification which has in some measure taken place, they are quite as capable of resisting the attacks of time as the glass and porcelain deities and ornaments found in the mummy cases of Egypt, and may have lain for an indefinite period beneath the surface of the earth. It is therefore, at least, possible that they may have arrived hither from the East, along with the weapons, ornaments, and other articles of commerce, which were brought to these islands by the ships of the great merchant-princes of antiquity, the Phoenicians, to who our ports and harbours were well known.

Mr. Smith then called the attention of the Academy to the remarkable discovery, by Rosellini, Lord Prudhoe, and other recent travellers, of unquestionable Chineses vases in the tombs of Egypt. He read a passage from Davis’s China, in which some of them are described; and also an extract from Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, from which it appeared that the number of Chinese vases found at Captos, Thebes, and elsewhere, amounted to seven or eight, and that the inscriptions on them had been translated by Chinese scholars to mean, ‘The flower opens, and lo! another year,’ being a line from an ancient Chinese poem.

From this the trade of China with different countries, at a period of the remotest antiquity, being clearly proved, Mr. Smith submitted to the Academy that a case of strong probability had been made out, that the porcelain seals found their way into Ireland at some very distant period. In fact, if they may be not of modern introduction into this country — a supposition which the situations in which several of them have  been found seems  utterly to preclude — their arrival here must of necessity have been most ancient.

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However, according to Dr  W. Lockhart, in a letter to The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, in 1873, the seals “had no great antiquity.” 

CHINESE SEALS FOUND IN IRELAND — “I saw in the Phoenix a question regarding Mr. Getty’s book on Chinese seals found in Ireland. I met with the book in Shanghai about twenty years ago, and, by a little search in the shops of Shanghai, soon obtained a collection of the same seals identical with the figures in Mr. Getty’s work, bearing the same inscription, and having in some cases the monkey on them, and in other cases the prized handles, as well as some with other figures not in the book. I soon found that these seals had no great antiquity, being about two hundred years old for the most ancient, while others were more modern. Having occasion to go to Dublin some years ago, I took some of the seals with me, and, in conversation with Mr. Edward Chittam, of the Royal Irish Academy, asked him about the seals, and if he could give any reason why they had been found so often in Ireland, when he gave me the following account. Some years ago, a nobleman - I think the late Duke of Northumberland - was anxious to find out the history of these seals, and asked Mr. Chittam to offer a reward of from one to three or four guineas for every seal that might be brought to him. One or two seals were sent to him, for which he paid the offered price; but he could get no history of them. At last a respectable woman brought one or two seals, and offered them for the reward, which was paid her. She then said she thought she could get others, and she was told to do so, and that she should be paid as before. After she had thus received several guineas, Mr. Chittam said, ‘Now that you have been well paid, what is the story of these seals?’ Her reply was that an ancestor of hers, an Irishman, was in the China trade about a century ago, and he was in the habit of bringing home a quantity of China ware for friends, to whom he said that that the shopkeepers from whom he had made his purchases gave him many of the seals, to which he had taken a fancy, and that he used constantly to give them away to friends in Ireland, and that they were carried about in all directions, being curious and interesting little things. The woman said that what she had been paid for were the remains of the large quantities formerly brought by her ancestor. Mr. Chittam said that this was the true account of the diffusion of the seals through many parts of Ireland. I was also told that the accounts given of the finding of the seals in many places of undisturbed sepulture of great antiquity are simply untrue, and will not bear investigation. Such I believe to be the story of the seals. — W. LOCKHART, M.D.”

Sources: 

Clarke, et al. “December 9, 1839.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1836-1869), vol. 1, 1836, pp. 373–384.

Lockhart, W. “Chinese Seals Found in Ireland.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 2, 1873, pp. 135–136.