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

* 1.4.1.1.1 There
indeed prove to be some
remarkable differences
between the Alps and the
Atlantic seaboard. Firstly,
there is the wide scattering
of relatively scarce cup-andring
sites in the Alps,
contrary to the often heavy
concentrations in Galicia and
the British Isles. If we
compare the relative density
of cupules and the ringmarks
(not cup-and-rings) around
cupules of rock art regions
with regions of more or less
comparable surface (Fig. 59),
there prove to be remarkable
differences. It proves that
FIG. 59: COMPARATIVE DENSITY OF MAJOR ROCK ART ELEMENTS.
cup-and-ring regions of the British Isles (Kerry, Argyll and Galloway)
have far more cupules and ringmarks than Alpine regions (Wallis,
Trentino and Grigioni or Graubünden) of comparable surface.
Indeed, in an area almost as big as the whole of the British Isles there
are found only 23 complexes of rock art where true cup-and-ring
motifs occur, against more than a thousand in the British Isles.
But it must be kept in mind that not every ring with a central
depression belongs to the so called cup-and-ring art tradition. One of
the major characteristics of this specific rock art style is that cupand-rings
are often accompanied
by single cupules, either on the
rock itself or on rocks in the
immediate neighbourhood so that
“a complex of cup-and-ring art”
originates. I will briefly describe
some examples of alleged cup-andrings
here to explain the
difference.
On the east coast of Sardinia
there is a long sea-cave, Bue
Marino, where two cupules with a
single ring each are found among
16 anthropomorphic figures. The
FIG. 60: SARDINIA.
glyphs have been carved on a
M. van HOEK: 89
GEOGRAPHY