DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.66493#0038
categories and which occur not in rock shelters nor in caves but on
granite boulders in the woods, on the moors and—when they have not
been destroyed—in the fields. These are Bronze Age engravings of
signs, schematized human and animal figures, “cups and rings” and
their more highly developed offspring, the “labyrinths.” Cups and
rings consist of shallow hollows in the rocks in connection with or
surrounded by concentric circles and are the products of a megalithic
culture which once flourished in Brittany, the United Kingdom and
Northern Europe. There have been and are other megalithic cul-
tures in other parts of the world, but the cups and rings are, with a
few exceptions, a European phenomenon. The more complicated of
the spirals and concentric circles we call labyrinths because of the
resemblance some of them bear to the labyrinth pattern on the coins
of Cnossus from 200 to 60 B. C. But what they mean is still a mys-
tery.1 In finding and copying them in the summer of 1936 we were
greatly assisted by Dr. Enrique Campo Sobrino, of Santiago de la
Compostela, a Spanish scholar who has devoted many years to their
2
investigation.
SAHARA ATLAS. The fertile strip of the Algerian coast
reaches inland approximately as far as Constantine. To the east of this
old city are the great Schotts, the remains of earlier watersheds and
consequent fertility 5 westward lie the rocky valleys and ravines of
the Sahara Atlas. If we follow them toward Morocco we come, near
Igli, to the Susfana Valley which runs northward and in which a
greater part of the Sahara Atlas rock pictures are to be found.
1The Cretan labyrinth pattern occurs in a megalithic complex on the island of Weir, on the
famous Etruscan Tragliatella vase, as a graffito on the walls of a house in Pompeii and again on
the walls of a house in Pinal County, Arizona. Somewhat similar representations are to be found
on Babylonian clay tablets portraying the entrails of sacrificial beasts and again on the wooden
and stone churingas (where they designate totems) of the Aranda tribe in Central Australia.
The latter cannot distinguish between concentric circles and a spiral, both of which mean for
them a waterhole or “the home” of a particular totem.
2 For the specialist, Dr. Sobrino’s Corpus Petroglyphorum Gallaeciae, published by the Seminario
de Estudios Gallegos, Santiago, 1935, will be of interest. The plates—photos from stone and
reconstructions—are excellent.
granite boulders in the woods, on the moors and—when they have not
been destroyed—in the fields. These are Bronze Age engravings of
signs, schematized human and animal figures, “cups and rings” and
their more highly developed offspring, the “labyrinths.” Cups and
rings consist of shallow hollows in the rocks in connection with or
surrounded by concentric circles and are the products of a megalithic
culture which once flourished in Brittany, the United Kingdom and
Northern Europe. There have been and are other megalithic cul-
tures in other parts of the world, but the cups and rings are, with a
few exceptions, a European phenomenon. The more complicated of
the spirals and concentric circles we call labyrinths because of the
resemblance some of them bear to the labyrinth pattern on the coins
of Cnossus from 200 to 60 B. C. But what they mean is still a mys-
tery.1 In finding and copying them in the summer of 1936 we were
greatly assisted by Dr. Enrique Campo Sobrino, of Santiago de la
Compostela, a Spanish scholar who has devoted many years to their
2
investigation.
SAHARA ATLAS. The fertile strip of the Algerian coast
reaches inland approximately as far as Constantine. To the east of this
old city are the great Schotts, the remains of earlier watersheds and
consequent fertility 5 westward lie the rocky valleys and ravines of
the Sahara Atlas. If we follow them toward Morocco we come, near
Igli, to the Susfana Valley which runs northward and in which a
greater part of the Sahara Atlas rock pictures are to be found.
1The Cretan labyrinth pattern occurs in a megalithic complex on the island of Weir, on the
famous Etruscan Tragliatella vase, as a graffito on the walls of a house in Pompeii and again on
the walls of a house in Pinal County, Arizona. Somewhat similar representations are to be found
on Babylonian clay tablets portraying the entrails of sacrificial beasts and again on the wooden
and stone churingas (where they designate totems) of the Aranda tribe in Central Australia.
The latter cannot distinguish between concentric circles and a spiral, both of which mean for
them a waterhole or “the home” of a particular totem.
2 For the specialist, Dr. Sobrino’s Corpus Petroglyphorum Gallaeciae, published by the Seminario
de Estudios Gallegos, Santiago, 1935, will be of interest. The plates—photos from stone and
reconstructions—are excellent.