1908-1909.] Cup- and R ing- Marked Stones. 125 



\l,^CUP- AND RING-MABKED STONES. 



By Mr STEWART AECHIBALD, Corresponding Member. 



{Communicated^ Feb. ^4, 1909.) 



Before proceeding to the subject proper of the present paper, 

 permit me to quote a few sentences bearing on the uses or 

 purposes of megalithic circles, such as those of Clava, dealt 

 with in my last paper.^ A few months ago I was shown 

 a small volume of ' Leisure Headings,' edited by the late Mr 

 E. A. Proctor (1882). In one of the readings, on "The Later 

 Stone Age in Europe," the writer, Mr E. Clodd, says : " In any 

 reference to the stone monuments, as the circles or cromlechs, 

 the table -shaped structures or dolmens, a host of unsettled 

 and storm-charged questions as to their purpose confront us. 

 Within a recent period the Druidical theory was called in to 

 settle everything. Now, whatever the Druidical religion may 

 have been, its rites do not appear to have been performed 

 within Stonehenge or Abury, or any other circles abounding 

 from the Arctic regions to Australia. Having regard to ' the 

 presence, not to say the ascendancy,' of manes-worship in the 

 religions of the world, from the lower culture up to the higher, 

 as in the disguised worship of the dead among Christians, it is 

 most probable that both stone and earth circles mark the resting- 

 place of the principal men of the tribe, deified into patron and 

 guardian spirits. That veneration and cultus of the dead, 

 which drew the survivors to the spot where he was buried, 

 to offer him food and drink, made that spot the central place 

 of common worship, and around it circles of stone and ramparts 

 of earth were raised, as fences and rings were constructed 

 around the dwellings of the living. Thus the transition from 

 the tomb to the temple was effected, from the simple mound 

 to the altar-stone or shrine over which the stately cathedral is 

 upreared." Well reasoned out, and as well expressed, and it 

 agrees on the whole with all that was said and quoted in my 

 paper. Sir J. Y. Simpson, in his very able article on " Cup- 

 and King-marked Stones," has naturally something to say on 



1 'Transactions,' 1907-1908, pp. 55-63. 



