21/05/2024
Scota and the Stone of Scone
Baldred Bisset is credited with being the first to connect the Stone of Scone with the Scota foundation legends in his 1301 work Processus, putting forward an argument that Scotland, not Ireland, was where the original Scota homeland lay.
Bisset wanted to legitimize a Scottish (as opposed to English) accession to the throne when King Alexander III of Scotland died in 1286.
At his coronation in 1249, King Alexander himself heard his royal genealogy recited generations back to Scota from a charter. Bisset attempted to legitimize a Scottish accession by highlighting Scota's importance as the transporter of the Stone of Scone from Ancient Egypt, during the Exodus of Moses, to Scotland sometime around 1500BC. "Where is that charter hiding"
In 1296, the Stone was captured by Edward I of England and taken to Westminster Abbey. In 1323, Robert the Bruce used Bisset's legend connecting Scota to the Stone in an attempt to return it to Scone Abbey in Scotland.
Scota's Grave
"Scota's Grave" or "Scotia's Grave" is a rock feature in Gleann Scoithín or 'Glenscoheen', south of Tralee in County Kerry, Ireland. According to the National Monuments Service, "Following a site inspection in 1999 it was concluded that the evidence was not sufficient to warrant accepting this as an archaeological monument"
The Lebor Gabála Érenn states that Scota was the mother of Goidel Glas, the eponymous ancestor of the Gaels. This Scota was the daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh named Cingris, a name found only in Irish legend and nowhere in Egyptian records or those of its neighbours.[6] She marries Goidel's Father Niul, son of Fénius Farsaid (identified as a son of Gomer) a Babylonian who traveled to Scythia after the collapse of the Tower of Babel. As with Cingris, Gomer appears nowhere in Babylonian records, and is not a Babylonian name.[citation needed] Niul son of Fénius returns to Babylon as part of an effort to study the confusion of languages. He is a scholar of languages and is invited by Pharaoh Cingris to Egypt to take Scota's hand in marriage. Scota and Niul's son, Goídel, who was saved by a prayer from Moses after being bitten by a snake, is said to have created the Gaelic language by combining the best features of the 72 languages then in existence. In Fordun's early Scottish version, Gaythelos, as he calls Goídel Glas, is the son of "a certain king of the countries of Greece, Neolus, or Heolaus, by name", who was exiled to Egypt and took service with the Pharaoh, marrying Pharaoh's daughter Scota. The Lebor Gabála Érenn describes him as a Scythian. Again, this personage appears nowhere in Greek records.
Other twelfth-century sources state that Scota was the wife of Geytholos (Goídel Glas), rather than his mother, and was the founder of the Scots and Gaels after they were exiled from Egypt.
Other manuscripts of the Lebor Gabála Érenn contain a legend of a Scotia who was the wife of Goidel's descendant Míl Espáine of ancient Iberia. This Scotia's Grave is a famous landmark in Munster.
The Gaels, known in Gaelic as Goídel and in Latin as Scoti, are said to be named after Goidel and Scota. However, historians say they were characters created to explain the names and to fit the Gaels into a historical narrative.
There has been a number of assertions that Scotland had an ancient Egyptian connection. One of the most popular is the legend of Queen Scotia who founded present-day Scotland with her husband Gaythelos.
According to the legend, Scotia was the daughter of one of Egypt’s Pharaoh including Ramses II, Friel, Nectanebo I, Necho II and Neferhotep I. Regardless of her father, it is clear that Scotia was of African descent.
Gaythelos, the son of the king of Greece, was exiled in Egypt where he worked in the pharaoh’s castle. He met and married Scotia. They were however expelled from Egypt and they fled to Spain before finding their way into Scotland. The reasons for their expulsion are as diverse as the versions of the legend, including the death of Pharaoh in the Red Sea during Moses’s time; the upheavals in the country; and the invasion by Ethiopians.
The party moved from Spain and discovered an island, which they named Hibernia. They still travelled on and discovered a new island, where they settled with the natives. This was Scotland.
A different version of the legend states that they first landed in Scotland, but were forced out by the natives. They had no choice but to head to Ireland, where they found Scotti. They lived peacefully and their descendants became the kings of Ireland.
Years later, the descendants of Scotia and Gaythelos went back to Scotland and defeated the natives called Picts and eventually hanged the island to Scotland, after the Egyptian princess.
While many still believe these are just legends, a historian has come out to say that it is actually a true story. Ralph Ellis has authored a new book, Scotia, Egyptian Queen of the Scots, where he says the story of Scotia is real and was the subject of the ancient text, The History of Egypt, written in 300BC by an Egypto-Greek historian called Manetho.
In his text, he says Scotia was really Ankhesenamun, daughter of Akhenaton and Nefertiti, and wife of Tutankhamen. He also states that Gaythelos was a pharaoh called Aye, who married Ankhesenamun after Tutankhamen’s death.
It is believed that Scotia was killed at war in 1700BC. She had gone to fight against the Irish’s ancestors who had apparently killed her husband Gaythelos in a different battle. Her burial grounds remain a mystery although there have been rumours that she was buried in Glenn Scoithin in Tralee Town, Co. Kerry, Ireland.
