Professor Nilsson refers the ancient bronze instruments, etc., to Phœnician influence, and describes some sculpture on two stones on a tumulus near Kivik, which, Mr. Baldwin observes, "even Sir John Lubbock admits, 'may fairly be said to have a Phœnician or Egyptian appearance.'"
Mr. Baldwin traces to Arabian Cushite colonies the very ancient civilisation of Egypt, Caldea, and the southern portion of India, as well as Phœnicia and the western nations. Another stone, described by Professor Nilsson, is an obelisk symbolising Baal. Referring to this monument, Mr. Baldwin says:—
"The festival of Baal or Balder, celebrated on midsummer night in the upper part of Norway, reveals the Cushite race, for the midnight fire in presence of the midnight sun did not originate in that latitude. This festival of Baal was celebrated in the British Islands until recent times. Baal has given such names as Baltic, Great and Little Belt, Belteburga, Baleshangen, and the like." He asks, "What other people could have brought the worship of Baal to Western Europe in pre-historic times? We see them in the stone circles, in the ruins at Abury and Stonehenge, in the festival of Baal that lingered until our own times; and there is something for consideration in the fact that Arabia has still the ruins of ancient structures precisely like Stonehenge. It is probable that the Arabians, or their representatives in Spain and North Africa, went northward and began the Age of Bronze more than 2,000 years before Gades [Cadiz] was built."
Mr. Baldwin draws a marked distinction between the modern Mohammedan Semitic population of Arabia and their great Cushite, Hamite, or Ethiopian predecessors. The former, he says, "are comparatively modern in Arabia," they have "appropriated the reputation of the old race," and have unduly occupied the chief attention of modern scholars.
Dr. Hooker, at the meeting of the British Association in 1868, described a race of men in a district of Eastern Bengal, who erect, at the present day, monuments similar to those termed, in Western Europe, Druidical. With his own eyes he had seen "dolmens" and "cromlechs" not six months old. He says that they call a stone by the same name as is given to it in the Keltic idioms of Wales and Brittany, though, he adds, little of the character of their language is yet known.
Sir John Lubbock, referring to the very ancient stone weapons found in Denmark, Switzerland, France, England, and other countries, termed palæoliths, says:—"Some implements of the same type have been found in Spain, in Assyria, and in India. The latter have been described by Mr. Bruce Foote; they were found in the Madras and North Arcot districts, and are of quartzite, and in several cases were found by Messrs. Foote and King, in situ, at depths of from three to ten feet. The specimens figured will show how closely they resemble our European specimens, and it is interesting that in the words of Mr. Foote, 'the area, over which the lateritic formations were spread, has undergone, as already stated, great changes since their deposition. A great part of the formation has been removed by denudation, and deep valleys cut into them are now occupied by the alluvium of various rivers.'"
In several parts of Britain, and especially in Cumberland, altars have been found dedicated by Roman legionaries or their auxiliaries to a god named Belatucadrus. Mr. Thomas Wright (Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 292), after referring to a small one erected at Ellanborough by Julius Civilis, says:—
"Several others dedicated to this deity have been found at Netherby, Castlesteads, Burgh-on-the-sands, Bankshead, and other places. In some instances, as in an altar found at Drumburgh, the deity is addressed by the epithet, DEO SANCTO BELATVCADRO. In some altars he is identified with Mars, as on one found at Plumpton Wall, dedicated DEO MARTI BELATVCADRI ET NVMINIB AVGG. Several attempts have been made to derive the name from Hebrew, Welsh, or Irish, and it has been hastily taken for granted that this god was identical with the Phœnician Baal. Altars to Belatucadrus have been found at Kirkby Thore, at Welp Castle, and at Brougham, in Westmorland. The one at Brougham was dedicated by a man named Andagus, which sounds like a Teutonic name."
Since the preceding paragraphs were written, I have seen in the Manchester Natural History Museum, a rude altar dedicated to this god, which, I am informed, was found some years ago at Ribchester, on the Ribble. As I had not previously seen or heard of it, it is not mentioned in my published "History of Preston and its Environs." The inscription is somewhat defaced, but the DEO MARTI BELATVCADRI is very distinct. It appears, like the one found at Plumpton Wall, to have been dedicated to this god, and to the gods of the emperor (NVMINIB AVGG), or, as some think, to the reigning emperor himself. The dedicator is Julius Augustalis, the prefect of some military corps, the name of which I cannot, at present, satisfactorily decipher.
The compounding of the name of Baal or Bel with other words is common, as in the ancient name of the Ribble—Belisama. This Belatucadrus appears to belong to this class, at least so far as cadrus is concerned, for at Risingham, in Northumberland, an altar was found dedicated to MOGONT CAD, which may perhaps mean, when written in full, in the nominative case, MOGONTIS CADRUS. Horsley imagined it probable that the CAD had reference to the Gadeni, a Caledonian tribe; but Mr. Wright regards this as very doubtful. The Welsh word cad means war, battle, tumult, etc. May not Cadrus, therefore, be a Keltic synonym for Mars?