UAU.] 



DENMARK— SWEDEN. 29 



Goteborg, and is now preserved in the Historical Museum of that city, is 

 apparently a boulder, and of small size, having one side entirely covered 

 with cups, while there are only three on the opposite surface. The cups are 

 not over six centimeters in diameter. Other cupped stones are known to 

 exist in various parts of Sweden, where, indeed, these remarkable antiqui- 

 ties are so familiar to the people that they designate them by the nam© 

 elfstenar, or elf-stones, connecting with them curious superstitions — either 

 descended from ancient times or of later origin — to which allusion will be 

 made hereafter. 



Dr. Petersen figures on page 331 of his previously-quoted article in 

 the " Memoires" of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries two erratic 

 blocks found in the Province of Scania, upon which cups as well as figures 

 resembhng wheels with four spokes are sculptured, and which appear to 

 be of contemporaneous origin. 



Professor Nilsson represents in liis work on the bronze age a heavy 

 diorite slab from a tumulus in Scania, called Willfarahog.* This slab shows 

 the designs of two horses drawing a two-wheeled chariot, and of three 

 ships, two of tliem manned. In addition, the stone shows thirteen cup- 

 markings, two of whicli are inclosed by the figure of one of the ships, while 

 a third is traversed by its lower line, as seen in Fig. 23, which is a some- 

 what reduced copy of Nilsson's delineation. Professor Simpson is certainly 

 right in believing that the cup-cuttings are in this case of earlier date than 

 the incised figures f Nilsson, however, draws no such inference, but finds 

 in the presence of the cups a support for his view that the slab occupied a 

 horizontal position in the tumulus, and served as a sacrificial altar. In this 

 tumulus, which inclosed no stone chamber, were found a rotten tooth of 

 a horse, fragments of a clay urn, pieces of charcoal, a lance-head and an 

 arrow-head, both of flint, and a fine flint dagger; and, in addition, a 

 medallion-like piece of bronze, ornamented with graceful spiral lines, such 

 as are peculiar to the earlier bronze age. Professor Nilsson, therefore, 

 has good reason for ascribing the Willfara tumulus to the age of bronze.f 

 He points out the analogy existing between the sculptures on the Will- 



* Nilsson : Das Bronzealter ; Nachtrag, S. 42. 



t Simpsou : Archaic SculiJtiires, etc. ; j). 78. 



} Objects of fliut and bronze are often associated in burials of the bronze age. 



