Mr. George Tate on Ancient Sculptured Rocks, <^c. 169 



Their wide distribution over the British Islands, not only 

 from the far North in Orkney to the south in Devonshire, hut 

 also into Ireland, evidences, that at the period when they 

 were made the whole of Britain was peopled by tribes of one 

 race, who were imbued with the same superstitions, and 

 expressed them by the same symbols. 



The opinion has been maintained that these sculptures 

 were the work of Roman soldiers, who, after driving the 

 native population out of their camps, occupied them, and 

 caused the emblems of their own religion, relating to Mithraic 

 rites to be carved on the rocks in the district around. But 

 such rude incisions possess none of the characters of Roman 

 workmanship ; nor have Roman relics of any kind ever been 

 found in connection with them. The fancy, however, is 

 completely refuted by the fact that these sculptures occur in 

 districts — as in Ireland and in the Orkneys — which were 

 never trodden by the foot of the Roman conquerors. 



The invariable association of these inscriptions with ancient 

 British forts, oppida, villages, and sepulchres, is evidence of 

 all having been the work of the people who dwelt in these 

 villages, and were buried in these tombs. The proof has 

 been cumulative ; and it amounts to a demonstration when 

 we observe at Ford West Field, at Black Heddon, at Craigie 

 Hill, at Lochgilphead, and at Kerry, typical symbols in- 

 scribed on the covers and side stones of ancient British 

 cists ; for these sculptures could not have been of later age 

 than the interments ; they may have been earlier, as they 

 might have been quarried from a sacred inscribed stone in 

 the neighbourhood, and placed over or in the cist to give a 

 sanctity to the resting place of the dead. These inscriptions, 

 therefore, are pre-Roman, and may date backwards not less 

 than two thousand years, and I am inclined to believe some 

 five hundred or a thousand years more ; because the relics of 

 the period indicate a low degree of civilisation, and would 

 carry us back to the early immigration of Celts into Britain. 



I have applied the general phrase ancient British 

 to this period; and avoided using terms more definite, 

 because the question has been raised whether our forts, 

 dwellings, sepulchres, and inscriptions are referable to the 

 Celts, the race who peopled Britain when Csesar made 

 his descent on the island ; or to a prior race — a race of 

 feebler organisation and lower civilisation still, who had been 

 driven away or exterminated by an irruption of Celts. The 

 determination of the question is not without some difficult-^ 



