The Ancient British Sculptured Rocks of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865. Excerpt: ... are but little below the surface, others are as much as half an inch in depth; usually however, the depth is about one quarter of an inch. The hollows are deeper, some being fully one and a half inch. The original character of the sculpturing, is best seen on stones recently cleared of a covering of peat, which has to a considerable degree preserved the figures from being worn and altered. These appear to have been rudely executed; the circles, grooves, and hollows, have been chipped out by pointed tools, some of which had been blunter and a little broader than others; the tool marks are in such cases distinctly visible, and the edges of the sculpturings are rough and jagged. Long exposure to weather, has however, altered the appearance of other figures; it has smoothed the grooves and rounded the edges of the spaces between the grooves, so that these spaces now stand out like rings; but this more finished aspect ii due, not to art, but to nature; for the play of the elements during many centuries, has smoothed and rounded the rude workmanship of the primaeval artists. This effect is shewn in Plate X., Jig. 6. The rock has not been prepared in any Way for these sculpturings; it is in its natural state, ridged and hollowed and rugged, as nature had made it; and the figures are incised on this irregular, broken surface, as well as on the smoother parts of the rock. The roughness and unevennesss of the surface of these figured rocks, might indeed be twisted into an argument in favour of the sculpturings having been made with a stone tool. However this may be, the material of which the tool was made is not determinable by the sculpturings themselves; that must be decided by other evidence. The number of figures on each stone is very different; on some there is..