BETANZOS, SPAIN—A long-overlooked and enigmatic inscription on the buttress of a fourteenth-century church in Spain's Galicia region is attracting new attention thanks to researchers who claim to have deciphered it. The Local reports that a group of scholars believe the inscription was written in a Gaelic language, the first direct written evidence of the area's Celtic heritage, and reads simply "An Ghaltacht," or "Gaelic-speaking area." The researchers are part of the Gaelaico Project, a private effort that brings together linguists, geographers, and historians to search for evidence of Galicia's Celtic history and specifically its close ties to Ireland, which many specialists have hitherto dismissed as pseudo-history. "If our interpretation is right, the inscription isn't related to religious matters, but rather to the language that was spoken in Galicia at the time," said Gaelaico Project head Martín Fernández Maceiras. The team is hoping to get a second opinion on the inscription from outside epigraphists.
