Details

LOT 1610

Bronze Age Ritual Limestone Slab with 'Astrological?' Drillings

CIRCA 2ND MILLENNIUM B.C.

25 3/4 in. (65.7 kg, 65.5 cm).

Rectangular worked stone block with one irregular edge; the thicker, dressed edge with a group of five drilled holes, possibly cup-marks, in a V-shaped formation. [No Reserve]

Provenance

From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000.
From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.

Literature

See Ebbesen, K., Danmarks megalitgrave. Vol. 1. København, 2011; Glob, P. V., Helleristninger i Danmark Vol. VII, Jysk Arkæologisk Selskabs Skrifter, Odense,1969; Milstreu, G.& Dodd, J., The cup-mark: the smallest, most frequent, cosmopolitan and most complicated symbol in Adoranten, 2018.

Footnotes

Cup-marks, with or without surrounding rings, are among the most enigmatic signs which can be found widely across ancient European landscapes, most often in association with running water. Circular arrangements are one notable and recurrent feature, while straight lines and parallel rows are less frequently represented. The present stone most closely resembles the kind of feature found at e.g. Østergård, Risehøj, Østermarie on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea (Milstreu & Dodd, 2018, fig.15).