Fig. 901.—Rock-tracing, probably representing the death of a warrior who has boarded a ship. Height, 12½ feet; width, 9 feet.—Sätorp, Tanum parish, Bohuslän.
It is a most remarkable fact that in the Eddas, Sagas, or songs of the people, no mention is ever made of rock-tracings. In the Sagas we are often told that drawings on shields, embroidery, cloth, &c., were made to preserve the memory of heroic deeds and important events. From these facts we must come to the conclusion that the rock-tracings are of great antiquity.
Fig. 902.—Rock-tracing—two men fighting for a wheel, man ploughing, man with bow, and fleet of boats or ships. Tanum parish, Bohuslän. Height, 23½ feet; width, 17½ feet.
The beautiful antiquities of bronze found in the North seem to show a civilisation higher than that existing at the time of the rock-tracings. The conscientious inquirer will naturally ask himself. To what epoch do these earlier rock-tracings belong—to the so-called stone, bronze, or iron age? Unfortunately, nothing can positively settle the question. Scholars who have made them their special study do not agree; and we know that graves of the stone age have been found with tracings, but not of human figures.[[120]]
But many of the tracings show that even at that remote period cattle were known to the inhabitants, and the existence of the plough conclusively shows that the people cultivated the soil.
The frequent appearance of swords on the rock-tracings shows that they could not have been made during the stone age, in which swords were unknown; but there are several indications that the tracings were made before the iron age, and that they probably belong to the bronze age.[[121]]
Fig. 903.—Ship on a rock-tracing at Lökeberg in Foss parish, Bohuslän. ⅒ real size.
This art of tracing seems to have been earlier than that of writing runes, for not one of these peculiar representations, numbering several hundreds of different sizes, have runic characters upon them.