I bought my copy of Ronald Morris’s The Prehistoric Rock Art of Galloway & the Isle of Man in the 1990s from a second hand bookseller in Dundee. The flyleaf of the book has the name Kennedy McConnell and the date October 1982 inscribed on it.
On researching the previous owner I found this WW2 People’s War
It makes me wonder if his war time work with Alan Turing’s team of cryptographers had left him with any insights into interpreting the meaning of Prehistoric Rock Art.
In his 1979 book, The Prehistoric Rock Art of Galloway & The Isle of Man, Ronald Morris listed one hundred and four theories which have been put forward in all seriousness by Archaeologists and others to explain British Prehistoric Rock Art. Could any of these theories be applied to the mysterious markings that are found on roadside kerbstones?
Burials, Standing stones, Alignment markers, Astronomy, Re-use in burial, Early prospectors, Early prospecting aids, Belief in after-life, Religious, Magical.
Uniform religious & magical significance, Sex, Breasts, Mother goddess, Mother goddess worship, Eyes, Phallic symbols, Fertility symbols – Sperm entering the egg, Fertility rites, Marks of sexual prowess.
Circumcision ceremony, Sex symbols, Sun symbol, Sun God, Baal, Water divining, Mixing vessels, Quantity measures, Freemasons earliest marks.
Sacred food & wine holders, Fertility Rites (Indian), Copies of worm casts, Copies of tree rings, Copies of ripples from a stone thrown into a pool of water, Druids, Used by Druids, Blood sacrifice, Code, Water time-signals.
Clocks, Pictographs or Hieroglyphs, Early writing, Messages from outer space, Megalithic inch, All measured in or founded on megalithic inches, right angled triangles, Equilateral triangles, code, spirals are two-centre half-circles of ellipses.
Different races made them, Bonfire ritual site markers, Search for food, Seed production, Early pilgrimage marks, Dye transfer moulds, Metal moulds, Maps of the countryside, Building plans, Star maps.
Emblems, Tattooists patterns, Decorations, Doodles, An elderly man’s screen, Boundary markers, Route markers, Tribal convention commemorators, Mithras worship, Shields.
Gaming tables, Marbles, Annular brooches, Animistic carvings, Primative lamp bases, Water worship, Cattle worship, Marks of piety, Re-use of long dead superstition, Monuments to the dead.
Natural, Hidden treasure, Plans for megalithic structures, Plans for laying out mazes, Field ploughing plans, Oath marks, Victory marks, Adders lairs, Knife sharpening marks.
An early form of music notation, Tuning device, Early astronomers night memoranda, Birth-growth-life & death symbol, A locked-up force, The stone circle builders carved them, Healing magic, Casts for making bronze, Sea goddess worship, Mirror, Womb symbol, Wells, Child carvings.
The Smell of Water 