16 CUP-SHAPED AND OTHER LAPIDARIAN SCULPTURES. 



in the neighborliood of camps and fortifications are mostly executed on 

 sandstone rock in situ. 



I shall have occasion to refer again to Mr. Tate's interesting monograph. 



Of particular interest is a class of small English cup-stones, which 

 the Rev. William Greenwell found in no inconsiderable number during his 

 extensive exploration of English barrows. He refers to them repeatedly, 

 but with special minuteness in his account of a barrow in the parish of 

 Kilburn, in Yorkshire. This barrow, which measured forty-two feet in 

 diameter, was no longer in its original state, having been much disturbed 

 in recent times for the sake of the stones which formed it. No traces of 

 any interment remained, a fact ascribed by Mr. Greenwell to the total dis- 

 appearance of the bones by decay. According to his opinion, a burned body 

 had never been interred in this mound, for in tliat case some fragments of 

 calcined bones would have come to light. On the east side of the barrow 

 was found a stone with two grooves running crosswise, and probably pro- 

 duced by the sharpening of some stone implement. 



"A remarkable feature in this barrow," Mr. Greenwell continues, "was 

 the very large number of stones (more than twenty) of various sizes, from 

 five inches to eighteen inches square, and of different and irregular shapes, 

 on which pit or cup-markings had been formed. These hollows were both 

 circular and oval, and differed in size from one inch in diameter to three 

 inches, and their depth was about two inches. The oval pits, as a rule, 

 were not very regular in outline. Some of the stones had only one pit- 

 mai'king upon them, others had as many as six; on some they were quite 

 separate from each other, on others they were connected by a shallow but 

 wide groove. They were all formed in a soft and very light oolitic sand- 

 stone, and the pits were in most cases as fresh as if only made yesterday, 

 showing most distinctly the marks of the tool, which appeared to have been 

 a sharp-pointed instrument, and very probably of flint. It is not easy to 

 attribute any special purpose to these stones or to their markings. The 

 condition of the pits, showing no signs of wear (for had anything been 

 ground or rubbed in them, the marks of the tooling upon so soft a stone 

 would have been speedily effaced), seems to preclude the idea that they 

 were intended for any domestic or manufacturing process. On the whole. 



