I return to a strange perforated pebble, an intaglio from Dumbuck.
Dr. Munro quotes, as to this pebble, the
Journal of the British Archaeological Association: “In the September number of the Journal (p. 282) we are informed that a slaty spear-head, an arrow-head of bone, and a sinker stone were found in the débris inside the canoe. ‘In the cavity of a large bone,’ says the writer, ‘was also got an ornament of a peculiar stone. The digger unearthed it from the deposit at the bottom of the canoe, about 14 feet from the bow and near to a circular hole cut in the bottom about 3½ inches in diameter.’ What a funny place to hide a precious ornament, for I take this peculiar stone to be that with the human hand incised on one side and three men rowing in a boat on the other! (see plate xv. no. 10).”
Here the place of discovery in the canoe is given with precision, and its place within the cavity of the bone is pronounced by Dr. Munro to be “funny.” As to the three men in a boat, the Rev. Geo. Wilson of Glenluce, on Feb. 14, 1887, presented to the Scots Antiquaries a bugle-shaped pendant of black shale or cannel-coal 2¼ inches long, with a central groove for suspension. On one side of the pendant was incised a sketch of two figures standing up in a boat or canoe with a high prow. The pendant is undisputed, the pebble is disputed, and we know nothing more about the matter (see fig. 25).
XXXIII—DISPUTABLE AND CERTAINLY FORGED OBJECTS
In his judicious remarks to the Society of Antiquaries, (Proceedings, xxxiv.,) Dr. Joseph Anderson observed that opinions would probably vary as to certain among the disputed objects. Among these are the inscribed oyster shells. I see nothing a priori improbable in the circumstance that men who incised certain patterns on schist or shale, should do so on oyster shells. Palaeolithic man did his usual sporting sketches on shells, and there was a vast and varied art of designing on shells among the pre-Columbian natives of North America. [137] We here see the most primitive scratches developing into full-blown Aztec art.
If the markings were only on such inscribed shells as mouldered away—so Mr. Bruce tells us—when exposed to light and air, (I do not