Symbolical marks, incised or drawn graffitti, not properly speaking inscriptions, have been found in Siberia, but they are not the expected primitive remains of ancient writings. Some are purely Tartar, being written in Mongolian and Kalmuck; others, obviously the work of common people, may be Arabic, while some others found on the left bank of the Jenissei river are much more interesting. They seem to me to be badly written in Syriac, from right to left horizontally, before the time of the adaptation of this writing to the Uigur and Mongol. The characters are still separated one from the other. On one of these graffitti found at the same place several Chinese characters, as written by common people, are recognizable.

Some hieroglyphical graffitti have been discovered on rocks above Tomsk, on the right bank of the Tom river, in Siberia. They are incised at a height of more than 20 feet. They are very rude, and somewhat like the famous Livre de Sauvages of merry fame in palæography. Quadrupeds, men, heads, all roughly drawn, and some indistinct lines, are all that can be seen. It looks more like the pictorial figures which can be used as a means of notation by ignorant people at any moment than like an historical beginning of some writing. There is not the slightest appearance of any sort of regularity or conventional arrangement in them.

The last we have to speak of are quite peculiar and altogether different from the others. The signs are painted in red. They are made of straight lines, disposed like drawings of lattices and window shades, and also like the tree characters of the Arabs and like the runes. They are met with near the Irtisch river, on a rock over the stream Smolank.

Figs. [513], [721], [722], and [723], infra, have relation to this geographic region.

It is to be remarked that some of the Siberian and Tartar characters, especially those reproduced by Schoolcraft, I, Pls. 65 and 66, have a strong resemblance to the drawings of the Ojibwa, some of which are figured and described in the present work, and this coincidence is more suggestive from the reason that the totem or dodaim, which often is the subject of those drawings, is a designation which is used by both the Ojibwa and the Tartar with substantially the same sound and significance.

CHAPTER V.
CUP SCULPTURES

The simplest form of rock inscription is almost ubiquitous. In Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Oceanica, shallow, round, cup-like depressions are found, sometimes in rows, sometimes singly, sometimes surrounded by a ring or rings, but often quite plain. The cup-markers often arranged their sculpturings in regularly spaced rows, not infrequently surrounding them with one or more clearly cut rings; sometimes, again, they associated them with concentric circles or spirals. Occasionally the sculptors demonstrated the artificial character of their work by carving it in spots beyond the reach of atmospheric influences, such as the interiors of stone cists or of dwellings. It must, however, be noted that, although there is thus established a distinction between those markings which are natural and those which are artificial, it is possible that there may have been some distant connection between the two, and that the depressions worn by wind and rain may have suggested the idea of the devices, now called cup-markings, to those who first sculptured them.

Vast numbers of these cup stones are found in the British islands, often connected with other petroglyphs. In the county of Northumberland alone there are 53 stones charged with 350 sculptures, among which are many cup depressions. So also in Germany, France, Denmark, and indeed everywhere in Europe, but these forms took their greatest development in India.

The leading work relating to this kind of sculpture is that of Prof. J. Y. Simpson (a), afterward known as Sir James Simpson, who reduces the forms of the cup sculptures to seven elementary types, here reproduced in Fig. 147. His classification is as follows: