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Ships, crosses and names scratched by people passing through.
Also known as: Ship scratched on a church wall, Crosses scratched by a doorway
Marks left by users rather than builders: a ship at a coastal church, a cross by a shrine, a name and a date. They record individual acts, and their concentration around particular features is what identifies them as votive rather than idle.
Ships appear far inland as well as at the coast, and are generally read as votive — a prayer for a voyage or thanks for a safe return — rather than as depictions of anything local.
Dense clusters of small crosses beside a doorway or a shrine are read as individual acts of devotion, each mark one person. Their concentration in particular places rather than across whole walls is the evidence for that.
Not vandalism in its own period. Systematic surveys found it in positions of honour and in numbers that make casual defacement implausible, which changed how the whole class of mark is understood.
Lightly scratched outlines a few centimetres across: single-masted ships, small crosses in dense clusters, and cursive names and numerals.