In the more settled and civilized parts of Europe petroglyphs are now rarely found. This is, perhaps, accounted for in part by the many occasions for use of the inscribed rocks or by their demolition during the long period after the glyphs upon them had ceased to have their original interest and significance and before their value as now understood had become recognized. Yet from time to time such glyphs have been noticed, and they have been copied and described in publications.
But few of the petroglyphs in the civilized portions of Europe not familiar by publication have that kind of interest which requires their reproduction in the present paper. It may be sufficient to state in general terms that Europe is no exception to the rest of the world in the presence of petroglyphs.
A number of these extant in the British islands and in the Scandinavian peninsula, besides the few examples presented in this chapter, are described and illustrated in other parts of this work, and brief accounts of others recently noted in France, Spain, and Italy are also furnished.
Nearly all of the petroglyphs found in the British islands, accounts of which have been published, belong to the class of cup sculptures discussed in Chapter V, infra, but several inscriptions showing characters not limited to that category are mentioned in “Archaic Rock Inscriptions,” (_a_) from which the following condensed extract referring to a cairn in county Meath, Ireland, is taken:
The ornamentation may be thus described: Small circles, with or without a central dot; two or many more concentric circles; a small circle with a central dot, surrounded by a spiral line; the single spiral; the double spiral, or two spirals starting from different centers; rows of small lozenges or ovals; stars of six to thirteen rays; wheels of nine rays; flower ornaments, sometimes inclosed in a circle or wide oval; wave-like lines; groups of lunette-shaped lines; pothooks; small squares attached to each other side by side, so as to form a reticulated pattern; small attached concentric circles; large and small hollows; a cup hollow surrounded by one or more circles; lozenges crossed from angle to angle (these and the squares produced by scrapings); an ornament like the spine of a fish with ribs attached, or the fiber system of some leaf; short equiarmed crosses, starting sometimes from a dot and small circle; a circle with rays round it, and the whole contained in a circle; a series of compressed semicircles like the letters ∩ ∩ ∩ inverted; vertical lines far apart, with ribs sloping downwards from them like twigs; an ornament like the fiber system of a broad leaf, with the stem attached; rude concentric circles with short rays extending from part of the outer one; an ornament very like the simple Greek fret, with dots in the center of the loop; five zigzag lines and two parallel lines, on each of which, and pointing toward each other, is a series of cones ornamented by lines radiating from the apex, crossed by others parallel to the base--this design has been produced by scraping, and I propose to call it the Patella ornament, as it strikingly resembles the large species of that shell so common on our coasts, and which shell Mr. Conwell discovered in numbers in some of the cists, in connection with fragments of pottery and human bones; a semicircle with three or four straight lines proceeding from it, but not touching it; a dot with several lines radiating from it; combinations of short straight lines arranged either at right angles to or sloping from a central line; an S-shaped curve, each loop inclosing concentric circles; and a vast number of other combinations of the circle, spiral, line, and dot, which can not be described in writing.