Maarten van Hoek The Geography of Cup-and-Ring ... - StoneWatch

Another cupuled stone has been reported at Holsnanuten (1100 m OD)
in the upland area east of the lake at Hellaug (Mandt Larsen 1972: 23).
It is often noticed that cupules are found further inland than the cupand-rings
of the area (Bradley 1997: 168; Burenhult 1980: 34).
The most important decorated rock in the Vinje group, is an enormous
boulder left by the melting glacier that once carved this valley. Again,
the boulder is severely tilted. It has a very large and smooth steeply
east sloping surface
with some cupules and
a couple of ill-formed
and faint cup-andrings.
The smaller
west facing part, also
sloping rather
steeply, has a large
collection of cupules
and cup-and-rings
(Fig. 115), probably all
dating from the
Neolithic period. Only
four symbols, mainly
cross-in-circles, may
be from the Bronze
Age. Prominently
placed on this rock
face are two large
sets (50 cm in
diameter each) with
respectively five and
seven concentric
rings. They each have
FIGURE 115: VINJE 1.
a relatively small
central cupule and the superficially engraved ringmarks are rather
closely packed. This may point to a late Neolithic origin (Van Hoek
1998a: 55).
Again, it is remarkable that this very steep rock face has been
selected to bear the biggest collection of complex cup-and-ring motifs
of the area. Without the modern built platform it would even be
impossible to get a good view of the west facing part as the large rock
partially overhangs the land to the west. The lower parts of the east
face are far more suitable for engraving and viewing, but have largely
been ignored. The heavily engraved surface overlooks Lake Stordal to
the west, but the site is not intervisible with the rock at Flote.
The next Chapter offers a discussion of Scandinavian cup-and-ring art
as well as some (statistical) appendices.
M. van HOEK: 142
GEOGRAPHY