76 CUP-SHAPED AND OTHER LAPIDARIAN SCULPTUEES. 



upon a .stick placed in their central cups — and its shadow corresponding 

 with one of the central radial grooves ; but they have been found in local- 

 ties which neither sun nor shadow could reach, as in the dark interiors of 

 stone sepulchres and underground houses. Others have regarded them as 

 some form of gambling table; but thej occur on perpendicular and slanting 

 as well as flat rocks; and besides, if such were their use, they would 

 scai'cely have been employed to cover the ashes of the dead. 



"I have heard them spoken of as rude representations of the sun and 

 stars, and of other material and even corporeal objects of natural or Sabean 

 worship; but all attempts to connect the peculiar configurations and rela- 

 tions which they show with any celestial or terrestrial matters have as yet 

 confessedly failed. Nor have we the slightest particle of evidence in favor 

 of any of the numerous additional conjectures which have been proposed — 

 as that these British cup and ring-carvings are symbolic enumerations of 

 families or tribes: or some variety of archaic writing; or emblems of the 

 philosophical views of the Druids ; or stone tables for Druidical sacrifices ; 

 or objects for the practice of magic and necromancy." 



One of Professor Simpson's friends, Mr. Dickson, of Alnwick, in re-^ 

 ferring to incised stones in Northumberland, "has suggested that these 

 carvings relate to the god Mithras (the name under which the sun was 

 worshiped in Persia); that about the end of the second century the 

 rehgion of Mithras had extended over all the western empire, and was the 

 favorite religion of the Romans — a system of astrological theology; that 

 in the sculptured Northumberland rocks the central cup signifies the sun, 

 the concentric circles probably the orbits of the planets, and the radial 

 straight groove the way through the sun. In consequence, Mr. Dickson 

 holds these rock-sculptures to be the work of the Romans, and not Celtic — 

 having been cut, he supposes, as embleins of their religion by Roman sol- 

 diers near old British camps, after they had driven out their native defend- 

 ers. But if they were of Roman origin, they would surely be found in 

 and around Roman stations, and not in and around British localities^in 

 Roman graves, and not in old British kistvaens. The fact, however, is that 

 they abound in localities which no Roman soldiers ever reached, as in 

 Argyleshire, in Orkney, and in Ireland. And possibly even most of them 



