It is quite true that cup marks have been found in Cornwall and in various places on the East Coast of Scotland, but this is no proof that they were the work of Phœnicians, even if we take it for granted that these people came to Cornwall for tin, and that they traded with the tribes dwelling on the eastern shores of Scotland. Some writers have suggested that these cups and dots represent primitive maps, others have taken them to be sundials, and others, bolder still, have recognised them to be gambling-tables! It has also been thought that they were symbolic enumerations of families or tribes, emblems of philosophical views, or possibly stone tables for Druidical sacrifice.[262] It is only during the last fifty years that the attention of archæologists has been drawn to these widely diffused examples of archaic writing, and until a few months ago it was not known that Spain too could furnish examples.
In the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquarians of Scotland for the year 1899, we are told that in Kirkcudbrightshire alone there are not less than forty-nine separate surfaces on which cup and ring markings are found; these surfaces vary in size, direction of slope, texture, and position to such a degree “that no safe conclusions can be drawn as to the
PREHISTORIC WRITING DISCOVERED ON BOULDERS NEAR THE TOWN OF PONTEVEDRA IN 1907
meaning or use of these mysterious incised markings, occurring, as they do, not only on solid rock ... but upon thin slabs ... on boulders, and even at the very apex of a piece of rock ... and also on stones within a cairn.... At the present date Inverness heads the list with one hundred and twenty sites; Kirkcudbrightshire is second with fifty-four, and Nairn and Perth have forty-six each.”[263]
Many of the drawings above alluded to are almost exactly like those I brought with me from Pontevedra. They look as if they must have been the work of one and the same race. As they are nearly always found close to the sea, it looks as if they must have been done by a seafaring people.
CHAPTER XXI
VIGO AND TUY
Southey at Redondela—Sacked by the English—The most modern town in Galicia—The finest climate in Spain—Submarine cables—Vigo’s harbour—Vicus Spacorum—Bayona—Tuy—Early history—The Miño—The International Bridge—Occupied by the French—Learned bishops—The oldest cathedral in Galicia—A puzzling inscription—Quaint sculpture—Santo Domingo—The Cathedral—Its history—The portico—The interior—A rectangular apse—The cloister—San Telmo—The Portuguese frontier—Passports—Education in Portugal