CUP-MARKINGS. 97 



First : That the variety in number and size of the 

 hollows is evidently intentional, therefore it has some mean- 

 ing, and he suggests that they may be a kind of writing, 

 comparable in principle to the Ogham character in Western 

 Europe, lines being easily made in stratified rocks there 

 generally used for this purpose, but difficult to cut in the 

 harder unstratified rock used in India and elsewhere ; conse- 

 quently circles and cups take the place of lines, the circular 

 cups being made with fair ease, by continuously whirling a stone 

 round on the same spot. Viewed in this light, " Each line or 

 group of cups might spell the name of the individual who made 

 them, or who set up the stone on which they are worked, or the 

 marks may denote the age of the deceased, or the number of his 

 children, or the number of enemies slain by the warrior" whose 

 remains are buried in the tomb or space encircled by the stones. 



Secondly : He agrees as to their antiquity with the 

 natives of the country, who could give no information as to 

 their origin, they had no knowledge of who made them, they 

 were most probably the work of the giants or the Groalas 

 (herdsmen) in days gone by. Again " From the people of the 

 neighbourhood and even from the Brahmans and other learned 

 persons of Nagpore, who speak with authority on the ancient 

 history of the province, no satisfactory information regarding 

 the tribes who constructed these barrows is to be obtained. 

 Some will tell you the story that these mounds are the works 

 of giants, or the Gaolees or Shepherd Kings, regarding whose 

 rule in Central India, at a period prior to the Aryan invasion, 

 a deep-rooted tradition exists." " That these circles are very 

 old, the condition in which they are now found distinctly 

 shews, and the remains discovered therein leave no doubt 

 that they were once the burial places of a people of whom 

 these circles are now the only traces that remain." These 

 circles are the ones on which the cup-markings are found, for 

 on the next page we read : " Each circle, however, generally 

 contains 2 or 3 stones larger than their neighbours, which 

 from their comparative regularity of shape would appear to 

 have been artificially dressed ; it is on these selected stones 

 that the cup-marks resembling those found on exactly similar 

 tumuli in Europe are to be seen." Just one example to show 

 their similarity to the ancient stone monuments of Western 

 Europe. Colonel Meadows Taylor placed side by side in his 

 sketch, barrows examined by him near Alnwick in Northum- 

 berland, and the tumuli of the Dekhan in India explored by 

 him in 1851, and it will be seen that in nearly every respect, 

 the burial places are counterparts of one another. 



