of art seems to have been invented by some pre-Celtic people, but to have been adopted by Celts, by Scandinavian, by British, and Iberian races—perhaps not always pure in their own countries, but always with considerable differences, which, when perceived and classified, will enable us to distinguish between the works of the several races as clearly as we can between the mediæval styles that superseded them.
Among these peculiarities, the most easily recognised are the square or oblong enclosures which surround tumuli, and, sometimes, one, at others two, or even three free-standing dolmens. In order to make the point clear, I have quoted a diagram from Sjöborg, though it is almost the only instance in this work in which a woodcut does not represent a really existing object. I have no doubt, however, that it is correct, as old Olaus Wormius represents one of two similar ones which in his day existed near Roeskilde. Both had enclosures 50 paces square, enclosing one tumulus with a circle of stones round its base, another halfway up, and, the text says, an altar-dolmen on the top, though the woodcut does not show it. The other, on the road to Birck, in Zeeland, enclosed three tumuli in juxtaposition, the one in the centre similar to that just described, and with a dolmen on its summit; two smaller mounds are represented in juxtaposition on either side, but with only a circle of stones round their base.[1] Other varieties
- ↑ Olaus Wormius, 'Danica Monumenta,' pp. 8 and 35.
