Fig. 150.—Cup sculptures at Ballymenach, Scotland.
Dr. Berthold Seeman remarks concerning the characters in Fig. [105], supra, copied from a rock in Chiriqui, Panama, that he discovers in it a great resemblance to those of Northumberland, Scotland, and other parts of Great Britain. He says, as quoted by Dr. Rau (d):
It is singular that, thousands of miles away, in a remote corner of tropical America, we should find the concentric rings and several other characters typically identical with those engraved on the British rocks.
The characters in Chiriqui are, like those of Great Britain, incised on large stones, the surface of which has not previously undergone any smoothing process. The incised stones occur in a district of Veraguas (Chiriqui or Alanje), which is now thinly inhabited, but which, judging from the numerous tombs, was once densely peopled.
From information received during my two visits to Chiriqui and from what has been published since I first drew attention to this subject, I am led to believe that there are a great many inscribed rocks in that district. But I myself have seen only one, the now famous piedra pintal (i. e., painted stone), which is found on a plain at Caldera, a few leagues from the town of David. It is 15 feet high, nearly 50 feet in circumference, and rather flat on the top. Every part, especially the eastern side, is covered with incised characters about an inch or half an inch deep. The first figure on the left hand side represents a radiant sun, followed by a series of heads or what appear to be heads, all with some variation. It is these heads, particularly the appendages (perhaps intended for hair?), which show a certain resemblance to one of the most curious characters found on the British rocks, and calling to mind the so-called “Ogham characters.” These “heads” are succeeded by scorpion-like or branched and other fantastic figures. The top of the stone and the other sides are covered with a great number of concentric rings and ovals, crossed by lines. It is especially these which bear so striking a resemblance to the Northumbrian characters.
Fig. 151.—Cup sculptures in Chiriqui.
Fig. 151 presents five selected characters from the rock mentioned: a attached to the respective numbers always refers to the Chiriqui and b to the British type of the several designs; 1a and 1b represent radiant suns; 2a and 2b show several grooves, radiating from an outer arch, resembling, as Dr. Seeman thinks, the Ogham characters; 3a and 3b show the completely closed concentric circles; 4a and 4b show how the various characters are connected by lines; 5a and 5b exhibit the groove or outlet of the circle.
Mr. G. H. Kinahan, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1889, p. 171, gives an account of Barnes’s Inscribed Dallâus, County Donegal, Ireland. One of his figures bears four cups joined together by lines forming a cross. The remainder of the illustrations consist of concentric rings and cups resembling others already figured in this paper.