Uncovered: Secrets of Ilkley Moor’s rock art
Archaeologists and amateurs have been puzzling for decades over the origin of hundreds of examples of ‘rock art’ which dot the Yorkshire landscape.
Are they way markers, religious symbols, star charts or just ‘doodles’ done by early farmers with a bit of time on their hands?
Questions about their meaning continue to be debated in academic circles but now the public is being invited to the debate with the launch of a new guide to the rocks, some of which are on remote, windswept moorland and are notoriously hard to find.
Read Full story here: www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
See on Scoop.it – Archaeology News
I know what the cup marks were for. And it has nothing to do with astronomy.
I could write it up. I have not yet decided. Writing books is not my thing.
I think it's funny because I was just looking at it and now I wonder why so many clever fellers couldn't work it out before. If you knew how it was you would realise just how simple and yet understandable the practice was all that time ago. I still don't understand the standing stones like henges but the cup marks are quite clear as to their purpose. I like the way it works in its various forms and it is still practised today but altered very much indeed. I can see too how it was so temporary. It gave way to another behaviour. A gradual shift in human activity but it is still human. I am a 70 year old graduate and I have been reading history for more than sixty years. But I got it without all that ~ because I am a lateral thinker.
Well that was well said. Glad you know what was going on.
I suspect you don't Mr. Lindsay. You're just another amateur speculator with a bee in his bonnet. Prove otherwise if you can by presenting your evidence (not speculation). Remember the Northern Archaeology Group?
Even the Old Testament would give you a clue. Or the Mayans. Then remember the Bog People. The purpose was good but the means were crude. Even the varied numbers of holes has meaning. That varies to each district. It's a people thing. Silbury Hill is a clue. I could spell it out but I want you to think.
Think of a cup mark as a birth. Remember too that there was a Sky Father and an Earth Mother. There are also cup marks on standing stone circles. So the practice continued but within a community site instead of as an isolated family in a district. There is continuity from that time until the present. Feel good about that. This is us. But there is a lot more I have to explain.
The early marks were functional. I know how they were used. But it is likely that the later marks became symbolic rather than functional. I can see now how it confuses thinkers. Even then ~ practices changed from generation to generation. I think it is wrong to try to attribute a practice of one generation to apply to all those who followed when they had cause to simplify or even to abandon it. It is likely that by 1000 BC the purpose had been forgotten, even then. Just some funny stones.
There seems to be little or no interest here. I had hoped for some debate.
There is no debate with you. I don't think anyone attributes to a single generation. and to state you know… is an absolute. You perhaps have a valid theory. but. you are unable to share it. or explain it in a coherent way.
Perhaps you need to work on this, so you can explain in a short way the general content of your theory.
People do not know absolutes about the prehistoric periods… is a good start.
Look at dating and comparative occupation and settlement patterns. I fear you have looked at this in isolation. Temporal issues get in the way.
You may be right. I prefer my way to yours. My way can get you there but your way has failed, so far. It reads of arrogance. That is not our way here. I like an enlightened approach to solving things. How about it? Johnny
The respondents seem to have nothing to contribute on the cup marks except to take issue with me. Great work has been done by British archaeologists lately on all sorts of things. I challenge Britons to talk cup marks. Is there no interest? Do you not want to know? Is curiosity dying? Come on people ~ get into this. I can help. Johnny
WE do want to know, but have not actually said anything… we know several people personally who do work with these. including Douglas Scott who is very very good and looks at it beyond the 'standard way. read the latest article by him on this site on the cup marks on a stone circle – http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/… – or perhaps the article on the trefael stone – http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/…
Come on yourself and stop playing hard to get… IF you really know then do tell… but really, you are more than likely just guessing. and picking only the 'stuff' that fits your theory.
If you have not read these before.. then have a look.
Your way is not any way … yet. explain yourself.?
If a hole is pecked out it must either symbolise something, or have originated with some purpose or just be a design. I say that the original purpose was to contain blood of a sacrifice and the overflow of that blood could run down the stone, sometimes along the lines or channels prepared for it. Think of the action like a Christening at a font. Think also of the rings as being an umbilical connecting the event to the sky god. He could view it from above. The blood runs down to the earth mother. The child must have been present to be anointed with the blood of the sacrifice and probably named at the same time. Here we have ceremony in the presence of the deities, the family and in the standing stone circles ~ the community. Many cup marks, therefore many children. Infant mortality may have been fairly high. Johnny
What about ones on vertical stones and what about ones with single cups.
The concept of runnels and liquids on some of them has been looked at quite a lot and is indeed one of the possible theories. When I was at Kilmartin earlier the same was discussed on some new cup and ring panels./
Can we ask where you are? Have you been to Kilmartin or Ilkley for example
vertical cups ~ a splash of blood does the same thing as a font. But it must run down to earth to be 'effective.' Single cups without rings ~ a short cut version of the same thing. Variation in human behaviour is still human. A stone may be re-used or upturned at a later time. I am in Mosgiel, NZ and have never been to Britain. My Grandfather was a 'remittance man' from Sheffield who served as an ANZAC in WWI. Blood is the key to the mystery. Johnny
I should add that the cups became simpler over time because it was the sacrifice that was the important thing not the pretty design for it. That became the recording of the event in its simplest form. I suspect that the most elaborate cup-and-ring (with or without channels) designs were the earliest versions. A stone covered with cup marks appears meaningless today but imagine a father in the long ago pointing to his cup and saying to his offspring "See that one ~ that one is mine, and beneath mine, that one is yours, and those ones there, they are your grandparents." Unforgettable then. Forgotten now. Johnny
The idea that cup marks were filled with blood has been around for many years, but there is no proof that they were used for that purpose. In Irish, Scottish and Swedish folklore there are stories of how cup marks were filled with milk in order to placate and thank the Sidhe, or Elf fertility spirits living in the cup marked rocks, for good harvests.While this might give a clue to how they were used thousands of years ago, surveys of cup marks on many ancient monuments, such as stone circles, burial cairns and standing stone alignments show that they are orientated to the rising at setting sun and moon. In many cases the cup marks had to be added later, but in others, they along with the solar/lunar orientations were part of the monuments prime function, which seem to be link to the dead. We will never know exactly what that function was, but we can perhaps get an insight by understanding and sharing all that we know about these monuments.
I have never seen the contents of my pillow and I sleep on it every night. But I know it is there. You can be ever so close to something familiar, for years and yet never know its important content. What do I know? Perhaps I know nothing. I have shared. That is enough for me. Johnny
As Douglas says… we get an inkling by sharing. never an absolute. but an inkling… we don't know, we can create theories, some better than others.
Visit the sites. It will be worth it.
The Hawaiians still use cupmarks, to put the umbilical cords for their newborns, a practice that they have been doing for hundreds of years.
The Chumash and other Southern California native americans made a cupmark when their son or daughter came of age.
So almost everybody made them but with a variations of reasons for doing so (and many past cultures that we don’t know the reason for.
Good comment there. I think you show the difficulty of interpreting a single "event" to a single purpose. Geographic and temporal variation will inevitably lead to difference.
Thank you Michael