<< Our Photo Pages >> Totaig Cup Markings - Rock Art in Scotland in Highlands
Submitted by uisdean on Thursday, 12 April 2007 Page Views: 11313
Rock ArtSite Name: Totaig Cup MarkingsCountry: Scotland County: Highlands Type: Rock Art
Nearest Village: Letterfearn
Map Ref: NG87432536
Latitude: 57.269302N Longitude: 5.527179W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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Cup marks in Highlands.
On a rocky promontory close to the Ferry House at Totaig (NG 87642536) is an intriguing group of some 23 large cup marks, for the most part hemispherical and some 6 inches in diameter, carved into the limestone rock at around and above high water mark.
The OS suggests that the circular impressions on the rock are natural, caused by the sea’s action. (See Canmore site NG82NE11.) On the other hand, the regularity in size of the impressions suggests otherwise. RWB Morris, in The cup-and ring marks and similar sculptures of Scotland (PSAS 100, 1967-8, pp 47-78) catalogues a number of similar sites in Tiree and Argyll, which he classifies as bait holes – holes where fishermen ground up shellfish such as crab and limpet to use as ground bait. The Gaelic word for such cups is Crotagan. He notes that ‘In view of the change in sea-level since prehistoric times it seems probable that until not many centuries ago these big cups were well below the sea, if they existed’. The cup marks at Totaig are indeed at a productive fishing point. But Morris also notes that similar smooth round cups were also to be found one and a half miles inland on Tiree, in one solitary instance, on the top of a hill.
An earlier writer on the Crotagan of Tiree (J Sands, Notes on the Antiquities of the Island of Tiree (PSAS 16 (1881-2) p 459)) was told by local fishermen that the marks were used for bait. But he comments that ‘It is altogether incredible that people who
had no more important end in view than to prepare a lure for sillocks, would have undertaken the enormous labour of making so many holes in rocks [gneiss] of such excessive hardness….. I have no doubt that some of these cups are often used for the humble purpose mentioned; but I have come to the conclusion that the crotagan are a relic of the ancient Celtic mythology—that they belong to the period of the sculptured
stones, and probably embody all that was known of astronomy in that time.’
Another local explanation of the cup marks at Totaig has that they were made as moulds for the cannon balls which were used in the destruction of Eilean Donan castle, half a mile across the sound, during the abortive 1719 Jacobite rebellion.
Whether this site should be on the Megalithic Portal remains therefore an open question. But as carvings in rock they are certainly intriguing.
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