ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS 



casts of a species of fossil sea-urchin which has 

 weathered out from the surface of the stone. This 

 explanation ma}' b.e true in some cases, but it 

 will not serve in all, for the ' cups ' are sometimes 

 arranged in such regular order that their artificial 

 origin is palpable. These markings are found on 

 dolmens and corridor-tombs in Palestine, North 

 Africa, Corsica, France, Germany, Scandinavia, 

 and Great Britain. In Wales there is a fine ex- 

 ample of a dolmen with pits at Clynnog Fawr, 

 while in Cornwall we may instance the monument 

 called " The Three Brothers of Gragith " near 

 Meneage . 



There is no clue to the purpose of these pits. 

 Some have thought that they were made to hold 

 the blood of sacrifice which was poured over the 

 slab, and from some such idea may have arisen 

 some of the legends of human victims which still 

 cling round the dolmens. Others have opposed 

 to this the fact that the pits sometimes occur on 

 vertical walls or under the cover-slabs, and have 

 preferred to see in them some totemistic significa- 

 tion or some expression of star-worship. It is 

 possible that we have to deal with a complex and 

 not a simple phenomenon, and that the pits were 

 not all made to serve a single purpose. Those 

 which cover some of the finest stones at Mnaidra 

 and Hagiar Kim are certainly meant to be orna- 

 mental, though there may be in them a reminiscence 

 oi some religious tradition. In any case, it is 



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