Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – SE 17841 51306 — NEW FIND
Get to the Fence Stone carving and walk up to the top of the hill about 50-60 yards away. Once on the long flat rock, walk less than 20 yards WNW until you see the stone in the picture.
Archaeology & History
So named due to it being shaped like a little singular step on a stone, this cup-marked carving was first found in the middle of May, 2010, around the same time Michala Potts located the Snowden Crags cairn circle.
Step Stone, Snowden Crags
Close-up of the cups
First described and illustrated on the Avebury Forum on June 3, 2010, this cup-marked rock is found in association with a number of (as yet) unexcavated prehistoric remains, close to some Iron- or Bronze Age walling and a distinct hut circle, close to one of the D-shaped enclosures 20 yards away.* When I first found it there seemed to be just two simple cups on it, but upon viewing it several times over the last few weeks in differing lighting conditions, it seems there may be as many as 4 cups on the southwestern face of the rock. In one of the images here, you get the impression that there could actually be five cups — but I’m gonna play safe and just say there are three such cups here.
* At least 3 large, prehistoric, D-shaped enclosures have been isolated on these moorlands, with diameters ranging between 15 and 80 yards. None of these have yet to receive serious archaeological attention!
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
The Northern Antiquarian 
… and, just as our ancestors once rushed from one delusion to another, …
(Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov ‘THE FATALIST’)
Even natural stones have their charm. Nice photo’s – john
Hi John – You wanna see this in the flesh. You’ll change your mind!
‘If we cease to think of the land as environment and instead begin to think of ourselves as inseparable from all creation – breathing the same breath as the plants and animals – we will realise that the dust under our feet once breathed as we do; the moisture in the rivers once flowed in someone’s veins – there is no separation or boundary. There is no beginning and no end’
(Lorna Graves 1947-2006, Cumbrian artist)