Design marked with water
This is a smallish
boulder that lies close to a path leading from the Cow and Calf rocks over the
moor to Lanshaw. It consists of 25 cup
marks that seem to have been laid out in some deliberate order. There is a group
of eight cups in two lines of four (bottom right in the photograph), a line of
seven cups inside a rectangular carving (middle of the picture) and a further
line of cups above these that seem to curve around one end of the rectangular
carving (top of picture). There is also a groove that runs around the entire rock
(difficult to see in the lower picture but clear in the top picture when marked
with water) As with most of the rock
carvings of this type, its original purpose or symbolism is unclear but unlike
many other rocks on the moor the design here seems to incorporate some kind of
geometric pattern rather than a seemingly random collection of cups or grooves.
PRAWR = Prehistoric Rock Art of the
West Riding (Boughey and Vickerman 2003)
Glossary Item: Bronze Age
