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

Then remains the question why deer or stags are predominating in
Galicia (and why human figures in Scandinavia) when cup-and-rings were
“re-sanctified” ? In this respect it is important to realise that in
general prehistoric people must have been aware of a great number of
animal species. Yet they often chose to engrave only a very limited
range of animals, which indicates that differential decision-making
processes were at work. The selection of certain animal species
indicates that these animals in particular were considered suitable
subjects to depict on account of their social and religious importance.
They often were ascribed specific properties that no other animal
possessed. Just possibly in Galicia only stags were considered potent
and worthy enough to “carry the sun across the skies”.
Another interesting new view is held by Vázques who interprets some
cup-and-rings as (water) resources in the landscape. There are, worldwide,
many more instances of associations of petroglyphs with water or
water resources, like the petroglyphs near wells in the south of Africa
and in river-gorges in the Atacama desert of Chile.
One interesting example, the use of taheta at Easter Island in the
Pacific Ocean, combines this view with a variation on the veil-theory.
According to Lee (1992: 162) the term taheta, in general, applies to
(natural or man-made) basins in rock, rarely enhanced by carvings,
meant to collect rainwater. And although some may have been used for
pounding materials or as containers for tattoo-dye, it has also been
suggested (Lee 1992: 162) that they were used by priests who, gazing
into the reflecting liquid, could see into the spirit world.
Similarly, the Galician examples of “re-sanctification” may be a
continuation of the concept that the rock surface served as a kind of
veil between the natural and supernatural world. Specific animals,
important in their culture, were selected because only these animals
were considered to be able to penetrate the veil. The fact that one
engraved animals for this purpose and not human figures may indicate
that part of their concept was that ordinary people were not allowed to
go through the veil. Access was restricted to a few privileged people
(possibly disguised as stags on those occasions). But in order to
maintain contact with and control over the community, it would be
necessary for the insiders to make non-ordinary reality a reality for
the ordinary people. One way of doing this could have been to depict
the stag, an animal that was recognised and considered extremely
potent by every member of the group, initially using cup-and-rings as
entrances to the other side. Later, the engraving of such animals
sufficed and cup-and-rings were no longer needed.
The instances of “re-sanctification” in Bohuslän may be explained by
the idea that cup-and-rings were regarded by Bronze Age people as old
solar symbols and were incorporated into a human design in order to
create a “sun-god”. At first, it seems, this “re-sanctification” took
M. van HOEK: 210
GEOGRAPHY