“From the fact of cup-markings being found in so many instances directly associated with sepulchral remains, I think it may fairly be inferred that they are connected in some way or other with funeral rites, either as sacred emblems or for actual use in holding small offerings or libations.”
Mr. Romilly Allen is, I believe, quite right in his conjecture, which is drawn from observation of the frequency with which these cup-hollows are associated with sepulchral stones. But it must be remembered that a libation is the last form assumed by the usage of giving a drink to either the dead or to a god. The conception of a sacrifice is comparatively modern, the primitive idea in connection with the offering of a liquid is the giving of some acceptable draught to some being who is in the spirit world.
The fact, and it is a fact, that these cup-markings are found on Christian tombstones, shows how the old habit continued to find expression after the meaning which had originated it was completely lost.[51]
These singular cup-markings are found distributed over Denmark, Norway, Scotland, Ireland, England, France, Switzerland.
Fig. 59.—CUP-MARKINGS IN STONE AT CORRIEMONY. (From Mitchell’s “The Past and the Present.”)
All cup-hollows cannot indeed be explained as drink vessels for the dead. Those, for instance, carved in the slate at a steep incline of the cliffs near New Quay in Cornwall, and others in the perpendicular face of the rock also in the same place cannot be so interpreted, but their character is not that altogether of the cup-markings found elsewhere. The hollows are often numerous, and are irregularly distributed. Sometimes they have a channel surrounding a group. That they had some well-understood meaning to the people of the neolithic age who graved them in the rock cannot be doubted. It is said that in places grease and oil are still put into them by the ignorant peasantry as oblation; and this leads to the conclusion that, when first graven, they were intended as receptacles for offerings.
One day, in a graveyard in the west of England, I came on an old stone basin, locally termed a “Lord’s measure,” an ancient holy-water vessel,[52] standing under the headstone, above a mound that covered the dust of someone who had been dearly loved. The little basin was full of water, and in the water were flowers.
Fig. 60.—A “LORD’S MEASURE,” CORNWALL.