26 CUP SHAPED AND OTHER LAPIDAEIAN SCULPTTJRES, 



According to his account, cup-cuttings are found in most of the Danisli 

 islands (Seeland, Laaland, Fiinen, Langeland, Bornholm) and in Jutland. 

 "The stones upon which these cup-cuttings occur," he says, " are generally- 

 large erratic blocks lying in the midst of fields ; but there is a special inter- 

 est attached to them when they are sculptured on stones that have served 

 in the construction of sepulchres of the age of stone, namely, covered gal- 

 leries, oblong or round dolmens, or, as is often the case, on the smface of 

 slabs forming the coverings of funeral chambers. Their presence on these 

 slabs is not in itself a decisive proof that they were made in the stone age, 

 for the slabs were rarely covered with earth, and the figures may have been 

 engraved upon them long afterward, as upon any stone found in the fields. 

 But the motive which led to the selection of stones of dolmens probably is 

 to be sought in the peculiar protection these monuments afforded, to which 

 an almost sacred character was attributed. A more conclusive proof, how- 

 ever, that these cup-cuttings reach as far back as the stone age is furnished 

 in the fact of their presence upon the inner walls of sepulchral chambers ; 

 for it is evident that they could not have been engraved on these stones 

 after their application in tjie construction of the chambers" (page 332). He 

 cites several examples in support of his view ; but he also states that cup- 

 stones have been found in Denmark in connection with burials of the bronze 

 age, mentioning in particular a tumulus at Borreby, in the Southwest of 

 Seeland, which inclosed a stone of considerable size, exhibiting on its upper 

 convex surface from seventy-five to eighty cup-cuttings. There have been 

 found in Denmark several stones bearing runic inscriptions, dating from the 

 ninth to the eleventh century, on wliicli cups, in all probability of earlier 

 origin, are sculptured. In a few instances th^ runic lines even traverse the 

 cup-shaped cavities. Fig. 20, copied from Dr. Petersen's article, represents 

 the cupped backside of a runic stone at Ravnkilde, in Jutland. 



Some artificial foot- tracks, set in pairs, have been observed in Denmark: 

 in one instance on a slab belonging to the covering of a gallery in Seeland ; in 

 another on one of the blocks surrounding an oblong tumulus in the Island 

 of Laaland. The first-named sculptures, figured by the author on page 

 337, are not unlike the well-known foot-sculptures so often seen on rocks 



