THE BUILDERS 



with a semicircular notch in its edge. Tombs 

 with a holed block or blocks occur in England, 

 instances being the barrows of Avening and 

 Rodmarton, King Orry's Grave in the Isle of Man, 

 Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall, and Plas Newydd in 

 Wales, which has two holes. There are also 

 examples in Ireland, France, Belgium, Cen- 

 tral Germany, and Scandinavia, where they are 

 common. Passing further afield we find holes 

 in the Giants' Graves of Sardinia, and in Syria, 

 the Caucasus, and India, where half the dolmens 

 in the Deccan are of this type. The holes are 

 usually too small to allow of the passage of a 

 human body. It has been suggested that they 

 served as an outlet for the soul of the deceased, 

 or in some cases as a means of passing in food to 

 him. 



Attention has been frequently drawn to curious 

 round pits so often found on the stones of dolmens 

 and usually known as cup-markings. They vary 

 in diameter from about two to four inches, and 

 are occasionally connected by a series of narrow- 

 grooves in the stone. They vary considerably in 

 number, sometimes there are few, sometimes 

 many. They occur nearly always on the upper 

 surface of the cover-slab, very rarely on its under 

 surface or on the side -walls. 



Some have attempted to show that these pits 

 are purely natural and not artificial. It has been 

 suggested, for instance, that they are simply the 



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