Cup marks on stones in Danish Bronze Age settlements

Amongst the variety of motifs in rock art cup marks are the most common and recurring of them all. In number, they appear alone or more commonly several together, even in hundreds and sometimes combined in motifs of linear or circular style and also appearing in combination with human or animal figures, ships and almost any other rock art motive. They are found in a large variety of contexts, in Denmark mostly known from erratic boulders, on exposed bedrock (on the island of Bornholm only), and on megalithic constructions but otherwise associated with many other constructions and features (Felding 2009, 43-44; Glob 1969; Jørgensen 1972; Matthes 2016; Rostholm 2013). Though being the simplest of the rock art motifs this variety of settings have inspired numerous interpretations including depicting star constellations, “negative” imprint of mounds, symbolizing fire, as cups for offering and more mundanely as numeric count of armies or dead interred in grave chambers (overviews in Glob 1969; Goldhahn 2008b; Lidén 1938). Lately it has been suggested that cup marks are heads and thereby representing people, either specific persons or crowds (Horn 2015). A generally acknowledged interpretation throughout time is that of being a symbol of the life cycles through birth, rebirth and fertility (Felding 2015, 66; Glob 1969), while in some recent research the focus has not been on the actual motif, but on the ritual context the cup marks were made in (Goldhahn 2010, 12; Wahlgren, 2004; Whitley 2001).