134 Archaic Sculpturings. 



A geometrical arrangement is also found to survive in 

 the earliest Christian sculpturings, and may also be discerned 

 in those of the transitional period between pagan and 

 Christian times. In this connection the sculpturings at 

 Anwoth and of sacred bulls on sandstone slabs found in 

 Inverness-shire and Elginshire are good examples. 



I would put forward the conjecture that some at least of 

 the sculpturings represent at certain moments of time during 

 the year the position of the celestial bodies revolving round 

 a central point which was worshipped as the source of heat, 

 light, and life — the Supreme Source of which every religion, 

 no matter how primitive, has dealt with. It must have been 

 clear to man from a very early phase in his evolution that the 

 Sun and the Moon, the five easily discerned planets, and the 

 heaven of fixed stars were always revolving, and the earth 

 itself was somehow involved in the system. The elliptical 

 and concentric zones referred to may represent orbits of these 

 bodies. The sculpturings seem not only to have been con- 

 nected with the worship of the Supreme Source of Life, but 

 served also in some fashion as calendars. It will be noted 

 that the bodies (or rather the zones in which they apparently 

 were thought to move), which revolve round the central point, 

 are very often reckoned as nine in number, and we seem to 

 get persistent re-echoes of this pre-historic cult in the folk- 

 lore of the country. 



The idea of nine units in motion round a centre is to be 

 detected in the old custom in Scotland, when on certain days 

 of the year it was the custom to pass ceremonially nine times 

 round a pillar-stone or a set of standing stones. Perhaps 

 also the same idea survives in the old cure for a swollen neck, 

 which was to take a live snake and pass it nine times across 



which are geometrically disposed on the usual system. So far as 

 can be made out from Mr Coles' plan (P.S.A.S., 1910, xliv., p. 

 141), the line from the central cup to the centre of all the circles of 

 stones is carefully chosen so as to lie at right angles to a line 

 drawn from a point midway between the portal stones to the centre 

 of the circle. The stones in this group seem to fall themselves into 

 a precise geometrical arrangement, both radially and concentrically 

 from a focal point, 



