Fig. 485.—Ibid.
One may perhaps get a further sidelight on the marvellous labyrinthic cave temples of the ancients by a reference to the so-called worm-knots or cup-and-ring markings on cromlechs and menhirs. With regard to these sculptures Mr. T. W. Rolleston writes: “Another singular emblem, upon the meaning of which no light has yet been thrown, occurs frequently in connection with megalithic monuments. The accompanying illustrations show examples of it. Cup-shaped hollows are made in the surface of the stone, these are often surrounded with concentric rings, and from the cup one or more radial lines are drawn to a point outside the circumference of the rings. Occasionally a system of cups are joined by these lines, but more frequently they end a little way outside the widest of the rings. These strange markings are found in Great Britain and Ireland, in Brittany, and at various places in India, where they are called mahadeos. I have also found a curious example—for such it appears to be—in Dupaix’ Monuments of New Spain. It is reproduced in Lord Kingsborough’s Antiquities of Mexico, vol. lv. On the circular top of a cylindrical stone, known as the Triumphal Stone, is carved a central cup, with nine concentric circles round it, and a duct or channel cut straight from the cup through all the circles to the rim. Except that the design here is richly decorated and accurately drawn, it closely resembles a typical European cup-and-ring marking. That these markings mean something, and that wherever they are found they mean the same thing, can hardly be doubted, but what that meaning is remains yet a puzzle to antiquarians. The guess may perhaps be hazarded that they are diagrams or plans of a megalithic sepulchre. The central hollow represents the actual burial-place. The circles are the standing stones, fosses, and ramparts which often surrounded it: and the line or duct drawn from the centre outwards represents the subterranean approach to the sepulchre. The apparent avenue intention of the duct is clearly brought out in the varieties given herewith, which I take from Simpson. As the sepulchre was also a holy place or shrine, the occurrence of a representation of it among other carvings of a sacred character is natural enough; it would seem symbolically to indicate that the place was holy ground. How far this suggestion might apply to the Mexican example I am unable to say.”[996]
Mr. Rolleston is partially right in his idea that the designs are as it were ground plans of monuments, but that theory merely carries the point a step backward and the question remains—Why were monuments constructed in so involved and seemingly absurd a form? I hazard the conjecture that the Triumphal Stone with its central cup and nine concentric circles was a symbol of Life, and of the nine months requisite for the production of Human Life; that the duct or channel straight from the cup through all the circles to the rim implied the mystery of creation; and that the seemingly senseless meander of long passages was intended as a representation of the maw or stomach. That the Druids were practised physiologists is deducible from the complaint made against one of them, that he had dissected 600 bodies: the ancient anatomists might quite reasonably have traced Life to a germ or cell lying within a mazy and seemingly unending coil of viscera: we know that auguries were drawn from the condition of the entrails of sacrificial victims, whence originally the entrails were in all probability regarded as the seat of Life. Mahadeo, the Indian term for a worm-knot or cup-marking, resolves as it stands into maha, great; and deo, Goddess: our English word maw, meaning stomach, is evidently allied to the Hebrew moi, meaning bowels; with moeder, the Dutch for womb, may be connoted Mitra or Mithra, and perhaps Madura. It is well known that the chief Festival celebrated in the Indian cave temples at Madura and elsewhere is associated with the lingam, or emblem of sex, and it may be assumed that the invariable sixfold form of the Kentish dene holes was connected in some way with sex worship. The word six is for some reason, which I am unable to surmise, identical with the word sex: the Chaldees—who were probably not unconnected with the “pure Culdees” of Caledonia—taught that Man, male and female, was formed upon the sixth day: Orpheus calls the number six, “Father of the celestial and mortal powers,” and, says Davidson, “these considerations are derived from the doctrine of Numbers which was highly venerated by the Druids”.[997] Six columbas centring in the womb of the Virgin Mary were illustrated on page 790, and it will probably prove that columba meant holy womb, just as culver seemingly meant holy ovary.
Figs. 486 to 491.—Paper-marked Mediæval Emblems, Showing the Combination of Serpent, Circle, and Six Lobes. From Les Filigranes (Briquet, C. M.).
