CUPULES/CUPMARKS
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Cupmarks on a natural rock near the Raja Gosawin menhir. The presence of the cupules near the menhir might suggest that the menhir may have had been a major temple in hoary antiquity.
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Cupules are a mystery. No one has so far come forth with a suitable elucidation of these tiny hemispherical depressions on stones. These small cavities have been named cupules by the famed archaeologist Roberet G. Bednarik.
Cupules have been found in all the continents of the world excepting Antarctica. Cupmarks are therefore the oldest surviving rock arts known to human beings.
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| CUPULES IN THE PALEOLITHIC ROCK ART OF ISKO |
I also agree with Benarik that cupules must have been made for different purposes during different ages. Many associate these features with the symbols of the primeval Great Goddess. Megaliths were the appendages of the now defunct primitive fertility cult, the world over. The ‘yoni’ or vulva of the female was worshipped, as it was through this organ the child took birth. Pregnant wombs and pregnant women became revered entities under this primitive religion of fertility.
Therefore, across the world, a specific shape of a hill resembling a reclining female having a pregnant womb began to be worshipped as the Recumbent Mother Goddess form and the female vagina became the emblem of this Great Goddess and it still is in countries like India.Circles are also the symbols of the womb or the vulva of the Great Mother.
Therefore, across the world, a specific shape of a hill resembling a reclining female having a pregnant womb began to be worshipped as the Recumbent Mother Goddess form and the female vagina became the emblem of this Great Goddess and it still is in countries like India.Circles are also the symbols of the womb or the vulva of the Great Mother.
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Cupules in a megalithic complex of Napo.
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In primitive countries like India, this primordial fertility cult can still be seen mingled with the much later evolved Brahmanical Hindu religion and its Sanskrit rituals. Therefore, circles are drawn in red or ochre on walls during marriages; circles in India are still the symbol of the womb of the Mother.
It could be that such circular hemispherical engravings made on megaliths known today as cupmarks or cupules, were the symbols of the archaic Mother Goddess. Putting them on megaliths which too were female temples of the Great Goddess was perhaps in a way for the celebration of the glory of the Mother Goddess.
I have observed two types of cupmarks made on megaliths. One which can be seen made arbitrarily on a specific stone and the other type is a set of two rowed eight in each cupules, rather sixteen cupules in total on a megalith. The second kind I have found to have been made in an east west orientation. Today village children make such cupmarks on stones to play a game with small pebbles in them. The game, I feel is a later alteration of this much primitive arrangement of cupmarks. But do the 16 cupules (two-rowed 8 in each) anything to do with the so-called 16-month megalithic calendar of Alexander Thom?
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| These two- rowed eight-in-each cupmarks (making a total of 16 cupules) were made in an East-West orientation in most of the horizontal stones, as this recumbent menhir in Rola. |
THE RAJA GOSAWIN CUPULES:
Just adjacent to the Jaganaath Pahari in Silwar village in Hazaribagh in Jharkhand is a tall menhir which the villagers revere as the Raja Gosaiwn on whose Northern and western ends surrounding are outcrops which are profusely ornamented with cupules.
There are hundreds of them in here.The village women also pour milk in them on Saturdays and Tuesdays, the days assigned to the Mother Goddess.For them the cupules are the Goddesses' vulva hence are objects of veneration.
In the Jaganaath pahari itself there is a polyhedron structure whose bottom surface has about 8 to 10 large sized cupules which does not touch the platform on which the stone rests. These were perhaps sculpted before placing the enormous sized stone upon the platform to work as 'grippers' so that the polyhedron structure does not skid to its front while placing.
One of the oldest dating of cupmarks has perhaps come from Australia’s Jinmium province where cupules are found to be about 58,000 to 75,000 years old as dated by Australian scientists according to an article published on " The Sydney Morning Herald News Review of Sep 21, 19996". According to Bednarik cupmarks appear in India in the Pleistocene, but most are from the Holocene, and they were made from Acheulian to the historic period.
Just adjacent to the Jaganaath Pahari in Silwar village in Hazaribagh in Jharkhand is a tall menhir which the villagers revere as the Raja Gosaiwn on whose Northern and western ends surrounding are outcrops which are profusely ornamented with cupules.
There are hundreds of them in here.The village women also pour milk in them on Saturdays and Tuesdays, the days assigned to the Mother Goddess.For them the cupules are the Goddesses' vulva hence are objects of veneration.
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| The cupules at the bottom surface of the Bodhayana Shila in the Jaganaath Pahari |
One of the oldest dating of cupmarks has perhaps come from Australia’s Jinmium province where cupules are found to be about 58,000 to 75,000 years old as dated by Australian scientists according to an article published on " The Sydney Morning Herald News Review of Sep 21, 19996". According to Bednarik cupmarks appear in India in the Pleistocene, but most are from the Holocene, and they were made from Acheulian to the historic period.
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| This is a ritualistic implement in a Hindu household. Is this an evolved form of the primitive cupules ? |
More Info on cupmarks can be found in megalithsofjharkhand.tripod.com or grab my book :Sacred Stones in Indian Civilization
good infrmation. I was looking for it.
This is really interesting. Megaliths are mystery.
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