THE DUBIOUS READING OF 'ARMATOS' FOR THE LUCIUS ARTORIUS CASTUS 'ARM[...]S' LACUNA

For years now I've sought to demonstrate, along various lines, that Dr. Linda A. Malcor's proposed reading for the ARM[...]S lacuna of the Lucius Artorius Castus stone simply does not work. This whole time, however, it never occurred to me that the primary reason it doesn't work is simply because it doesn't fit the space.

Ironically, one of Dr. Malcor's most frequently expressed refrains is "Only ARMATOS fits" the lacuna. This is, of course, not true. At least three other proposed readings fit: ARMENIOS (with a N/I ligature), ARMORICOS (with a couple of ligatures, including a C/O ligature - something I was the first to do) and ARM.GENTES (for armatas gentes, with a common abbreviation and a ligature already found elsewhere on the stone).

But her insistence that only ARMATOS fits the space prompted me to look again at the reconstruction of the stone prepared by Dr. Malcor's colleague and co-author of MISSINGS PIECES, Alessandro Faggiani.  

I was immediately struck by something odd that I hadn't noticed before. To make sure I wasn't seeing things (or seeing only what I wanted to see!), I asked my wife to look at it and let me know if she saw anything unusual about ARMATOS relative to all the other words on the inscription.  

It shouldn't surprise me (as she is an accomplished artist with an excellent pattern recognition ability) that she noticed quite quickly the same thing I had noticed: ARMATOS appears to have been unusually widely spaced compared to other words in the lower lines. The line containing the lacuna was otherwise notably compressed or compacted.

Now, it is a known characteristic of this memorial stone that the lines at the top of the stone are taller than lines near and at the bottom of the stone. In other words, the lines diminish in height by stages as we drop down the surface of the stone.

This being true, I decided to compare the distance between three identically paired sets of letters found above the line of the lacuna - lines that are taller than that of the lacuna. I've circled the letter pairs in question on this image. They are AT, TO and OS. I've also underlined the corresponding letters of the proposed lacuna reading.

Although, obviously, I've captured this image on a regular sized sheet of paper and we are not here dealing with the actual stone, we are still comparing the relative scale of lines that are to be found on the stone itself.

When I measured the distance between the larger circled letters and compared the measurements from those with the measurements found between corresponding letters on the lacuna line, guess what I found?

THE MEASUREMENTS WERE THE SAME.

What does this mean?

Well, the letters of ARMATOS, being considerable smaller letters (that is, they are not as tall as the letters in the lines above the lacuna line), should have proportionately smaller spaces between them. In other words, the distances between the letters in the higher lines and those of the lacuna line should be scaled appropriately.  

THEY ARE NOT.

Unfortunately, this tells us that Mr. Faggiani has, willingly or otherwise, perpetuated a gross inaccuracy on the academic communitiy (or, at least, on the Arthurian community).  

And it also means that Dr. Malcor is wrong.

ARMATOS does not, in fact, fit the lacuna of the Lucius Artorius Castus stone.