Mr. George Tate on Ancient Sculptured Rocks, 8fc. ITS 



employed in drawing entrenchments ; Dod Law, where they 

 are so numerous, must have been the site of a military college. 

 The square figures on the Dod Law stones enclosing spaces 

 covered over with cups, might help the fancy ; but these 

 are rare forms. The common figures do not represent any 

 camp I have seen; in camps, one, two, or three ramparts and 

 ditches protect a large inner area ; but on stones where there 

 are a number of inscribed concentric circles, the inner circle 

 encloses only a small hollow ; four ramparts there are to a 

 camp, but not more ; but some figures have eight circles. A 

 glance over the plates of figures will discover numbers of 

 them, which by no stretch, even of the wildest imagination, 

 can be likened to camps.* 



Though of late there have been many speculative views put 

 forth as to the meaning of these symbols, it is doubtful whether 

 any advance has been made on the general views proposed 

 by me in 1852. The numerous additional facts observed, 

 confirm I think the conclusions — first, that these inscrip- 

 tions have been made by the Celtic race occupying Britain 

 many centuries before the Christian era ; and second, that 

 the figures are symbolical — most probably of religious ideas. 

 Look at the extent of their distribution, from one extremity of 

 Britain to the other, and even into Ireland ; and say, what 

 could induce tribes, living hundreds of miles apart and even 

 separated by the sea, to use precisely the same symbols, save 

 to express some religious sentiments, or to aid in the perform- 

 ance of some superstitious rites. 



Beyond these general views, I confess we wander into the 

 regions of fancy and conjecture. 



There are no traditions in Northumberland respecting 

 these inscriptions ; indeed, till discovered by Mr. Langlands, 

 their existence was unknown to the present generation. In 

 "Notes and Queries," (1858, p. 211,) it is stated, that in a 

 Welsh book on British History, " Drych y Prif Oesoedd," 

 published in 1710, allusion is made to a custom formerly 

 prevalent among shepherds in Wales, of cutting on the turf 

 a labyrinthine form they called Caer-Droida — the Walls of 

 Troy ; a practice supposed to commemorate the Trojan origin 

 of the Welsh. A similar custom was continued even to a 



* Reference may be made to plans of such encampments given in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Berwickshire Natural History Club, vol. iv., plates 4, 5, and IS; 

 and to the accurate and detailed maps of camps in the Ordnance Survey of 

 Northumberland. 



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