Home based in Columbus, Ohio, the Midwestern Epigraphic Society [MES], was formed on
November 19, 1983 as a chapter of The Epigraphy Society at the urging of its
founder Barry Fell * when a loose band of
individuals of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia kept presenting him ogam examples
for translation. Today, the Midwestern Epigraphic Society, and other former chapters,
are not associated with The Epigraphic Society in any capacity at all.
Within the first few years MES explored and documented 15 previously identified and discovered 60 new ogam sites in the rugged and sparsely inhabited regions of Kentucky.
Since then MES has extended its agenda to include research in the ancient migrations of mankind especially Pre-Columbian America, in particular the Midwest US; cultural diffusion exemplified in archaic writing, language, artifacts, ancient world history and new discoveries of modern science supporting these ideas. The MES club relies heavily upon its membership to share their individual research in the varied sciences and arts with the rest of the membership.
Publications are the Quarterly Newsletter covering club activities plus short articles of a variety of topics
authored by members and guest writers. Each year a Journal is published with in-depth articles
written by authors from across the world as well as nationally and locally. Subjects covered
include cultural and language evidences of migration, clues from the decipherment of scripts on
ancient artifacts, interpretation of petroglyphs and Indian storys and legends.
Publications are available to the public at the British Museum Library, London, England, The Library of Congress, Washington DC, the Tozzer Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, the Ohioana Library, Columbus, Ohio, and the Simon Schwob Library, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA. All can be purchased at the below listed web page.
Members and guests meet informally
each month for breakfast at a local resturant to discuss their projects, findings and news. At Quarterly business meetings members give more formal presentations on books, field trips and personal research.
The major annual event is the all-day Symposium held each Spring with local and guest speakers, artifact displays and book sales. The Barry Fell Award, the Victor Moseley Award and the Burrows Cave Award are presented to outstanding people in their field. The finale is an evening banquet, then a field trip catered to guests' wishes the following day.
During the year organized field trips are made to document ancient inscriptions in Kentucky, museum special exhibits, Ohio Parks and other interesting sites.
Please visit -
www.midwesternepigraphic.org
While a youth in New Zealand he played with native Mauri children and became intrigued with similarity of
words in their language with those in Gaelic that he learned from his mother who spoke it well.
His friends also showed him ancient Mauri grooved rock markings and later during his marine biology
work he found the same grooves on other Pacific islands he visited. All this coupled with formal
schooling in several foreign languages led him into cultural diffusion, epigraphy, and translation of ancient scripts,
resulting in a book on Polynesian petroglyphs in 1940.
He also traced the Mauri people back to a Mediterranean origin.
At Harvard he continued his sideline research with the translation of European ogam sites. But after translating a rather
long ogam site from Kentucky sent by amateurs who later became the Midwestern Epigraphic Society, he then concentrated
his study only upon ogam in America. He became convinced there had been many contacts between Europe, Asia,
Africa and the Americas thousands of years prior to the arrival of Columbus.
He gained a following and eventually started the Epigraphic Society of America.
He wrote several books on the subject that made him popular with the general public but very controversal with
professional archaeologists and academia in general:
America BC (1976), Saga America (1980) and Bronze Age America (1982).
Barry Fell*
Dr Howard Barraclough (Barry) Fell (1917-1994) was English born, reared in New Zealand, professor of
zoology at Harvard University and founder the diffusional Epigraphic Society of America.