1912] Ornerte heller i norske broncealdersgraver. 35 



Fig. 3 presents a stone found in a mound called "Havarhaugen" 

 at Skjølingstad, Torvestad parish, Stavanger county. 



Fig. 4 shows another stone ornamented with cups. This stone 

 was found in a peculiar arrangement discovered in the southern-most 

 mound at Rege. It is supposed by Mr. Lobangke to be an altar. 

 Such stones have been found in the "Dronninghøi" in Schleswig where 

 a stone engraved with cups had been placed erect in the border of 

 the grave, in front of which lay another stone engraved in the same 

 manner. By Tessenow in Mecklenburg a mound was found with- 

 out any grave inside, but the central parts of it contained a stone 

 construction, partly with walls of flat stones. It was 3 metres long, 

 2.20 m. broad and 0.70 m. in height. A similar, but smaller one 

 was situated near the eastern end of the mound. A great many 

 fragments of bones, burnt bones, and ashes lay dispersed between 

 the two constructions. 



Earthen vessels and small lumps of oxide of copper covered 

 the top of the stone in the mound at Rege. 



I agree with Mr. Loeange in supp osing these arrangements 

 to be places of worship. As yet no graves with ornamented stones 

 on them from the Bronze age have been found in the Bergen diocese. 



In the year 1878 Mr. A. Lorange explored a large mound 

 called "Mjeltehaugen" in Giske parish, Romsdal county. The owner 

 of this mound had, however, dug in it previously. The fragments 

 of the stones shown in fig. 5 — 12 are from his excavations. Mr. 

 Loeange discovered nothing that could explain these stones. Their 

 ornaments prove them to belong to the Bronze age. Fragments of 

 a stone with partly similar ornaments were found as a cover over 

 a grave at Stene, Byneset parish, Søndre Trondhjem county, fig. 

 13—15. 



Some of the signs which we have seen on the Norwegian grave- 

 stones are known from similar places in France, England and Ireland. 

 There they are seen on monuments from the Stone age. 



These engravings must have come with the large stone-graves 

 along the Mediterranean to Western Europe, whence the same sort 

 of graves have reached Denmark and Southern Sweden. In Norway, 

 however, no such graves have been found, so that it will be difficult 

 to decide whether these engravings were known in Norway in the 

 Stone age. It may not be impossible that they have come to our 

 country with the civilization of Southern Scandinavia, but as men- 



