72 CUP-SHAPED AND OTHER LAPIDAEIAI*r SCULPTUEES. 



" The implements and ornaments of bronze certainly appear to have 

 belonged to a race with smaller hands than those of the present European 

 nations ; the ornaments on them are also peculiar, and have, in Professor 

 Nilsson's opinion, a symbolic meaning. Although the great stones in tumuli 

 attributed to the bronze age are very seldom ornamented, or even hewn into 

 shape, still there are some few exceptions ; one of these being the remark- 

 able monument near Kivik in Christianstad. From the general character 

 of the engravings Professor Nilsson has no hesitation in referring this 

 tumulus to the bronze age, and on two of the stones are representations of 

 human figures, which may fairly be said to have a Phoenician or Egyptian 

 appearance. 



" On another of the stones an obelisk is represented, which Professor 

 Nilsson regards as symbolical of the sun-god ; * and it is certainly remark- 

 able that in an ancient ruin in Malta, characterized by other decorations of 

 the bronze-age types, a somewhat similar obelisk was discovered; we 

 know also that in many countries Baal, the god of the Phoenicians, was 

 worshiped under the form of a conical stone. 



"Nor is this, by an)^ means, the only case in which Professor Nilsson 

 finSs traces of Baal-worship in Scandinavia. Indeed, the festival of Baal, or 

 Balder, was, he tells us, celebrated on Midsummer's-night in Scania, and far 

 up in Norway, almost to the Loffoden Islands, until within the last fifty 

 years. A wood fire was made vipen a hill or mountain, and the people of 

 the neighborhood gathered together, in order, like Baal's prophets of old, to 

 dance round it, shouting and singing. This Midsummer's-night fire has 

 even retained in some parts the ancient name of ' Baldersbal', or Balder's 

 fire. Leopold von Buch long ago suggested that this custom could not have 

 originated in a country where at Midsummer the sun is never lost sight of, 

 and where, consequently, the smoke only, not the fire, is visible. A similar 

 custom also prevailed until lately in some parts of our islands. Baal has 

 given his name to many Scandinavian localities, as, for instance, the Baltic, 

 the Great and Little Belt, Belteberga, Baleshaugen, Balestranden, etc. 



" The ornamentation characteristic of the bronze age is, in the opinion 

 of Professor Nilsson, decidedly Semitic rather than Indo-European. He 



* See Fig. 2i of this publicatiou. 



