88 CUrSHAPED AND OTHEE LAPIDAEIAN SCULPTUEES. 



the southern side of the churches, near an entrance, and, as a rule, phxced 

 within the reach of a man's arm. The cups are smaller than most of those 

 seen on blocks, measuring onl}- from two to four centimeters in diameter, 

 and are commonly distributed without apparent order. Sometimes they are 

 partly executed on the mortar between the bricks, a fact demonstrating 

 beyond doubt that they were made after the erection of the churches. Such 

 a case is well shown in Fig. 61, representing a portion of the portal of the 

 Marienkirclie (Saint Mary's Church) at Greifswald, in Pomerania.* The two 

 uppermost cups, it will be seen, are partly excavated in the mortar. The 

 lowest course shows two furrows. In some instances such markings have 

 been observed on stone-built churches. 



It appears more than probable that the practice of thus marking the 

 outside of these buildings indicates the continuation of a pagan custom, 

 though in these cases the cups may not have the significance of those seen 

 on boulders and megalithic monuments. I already have expressed a simi- 

 lar doubt while speaking of the cupped holy-water basins. The motives 

 which induced people in comparatively modern times to mark churches with 

 cups and furrows are not yet known. The theory that they are the work 

 of children will not exjilain the wide extent and .uniformity of the practice, 

 though mischievous urchins may have amused themselves now and then by 

 adding to the number of markings.f They evidently are not bullet-marks, 

 as has been suggested: in fact, none of the views thus far advanced to 

 account for their presence appears to me satisfactory. The cups on churches 

 in Germany seem to have been thought to possess healing qualities. Fever- 

 sick people blew, as it were, the disease into the cavities. According to 

 other accounts, the patients swallowed the powder produced in grinding 

 out the cups. The latter practice has not yet become obsolete in France; 

 for Professor Desor learned from M. Falsan that in the church of Voanas, 

 near Bourg, Department of the Ain, a large stone, called La Pierre de Saint- 

 Loup, is preserved, into which the sick and impotent grind holes, and drink 

 the pulverized matter, which, as they believe, cures the fever and renews 



*Thc illustration is taken from au article by Miss Mestorf, published in " Mat^riaux", 1878, p. 277. 

 I bave reversed the position of the illustration, supposing that it was ■wrongly inserted in the French 

 periodical. It .accompanied originally one of Mr. Fricdel's publications. 



t VorhanOJuugcn der Berliner Anthropologischen Gesellschaft ; Sitzungvom IG. Februar 1878,8.25. 



