Today we ponder the very incongruous etching left in the midst of many indigenous petroglyphs. .
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Above is a photo I downloaded from Red's camera after our big outing late last Fall. As you can see, petroglyphs can hide themselves from discovery very well unless you happen to be close enough and specifically looking for them This wider view shows the curious scribing in the upper left, the ones which I covered in more detail in "Slowing Down for the Curve"..
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Here is the detail from the far left of that panel. The images are heartbreakingly worn away by time but still faintly discernible as you draw to within feet of them. Our odd inscription trails off from the right side of this view..
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Here it is in the long afternoon shadows of the Fall sun, a form intense and boundary disciplined, imposed over the much older rambling expressions of the first humans to pass through or live within these canyons..
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Virgil and his wife stood with us last weekend as we took new photos and still, between us, no one wrested an intelligible message from between those two lines. European in influence ... had to be. But why incise very distinct lines above and below the figures? A lingering school primer mindset overly-enforced by hovering dark-robed proctors brandishing rods? Roman numerals? Surely there are too many strange figures to support the numeral idea. What then?At least two of the figures appealed to my fancy as nearly Runic in form but this did not help me decipher the puzzle. Now it's your turn!
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In lieu of a comment, Scully has donated an image which might explain some of the motivation behind these petroglyphs. The 'fish story' surely has been around as long as there have been humans capable of hunting and fishing ... and drinking beer.
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23 comments:
Allow me. It seems that Pic 1 show a group of circus aerialists perform an extremely dangerous trick while they are being observed by a number of odd animals.
Pic 2 is a depiction of the mean Spaniards raiding a peaceful group of Mexican of American Indians.
Pictures 3 and 4 show humans in variuso positions doing what was known as the rectangle dance (This dance was popular in 11th century Germany).
If you need any other help in deciphering your findings please do not hesitate to ask for clarification, oh ye of the big hoodies.
Too "deep" for me!
Ah still hain't learnt how to NOT say "crik", yet, when I go "down-yonder" to the Bootheel...!
Well, I paused to look at a picture of my grandbaby Corey sent and my comment must have been lost...if not...it's worth a second helping!
As I said:
The last one says (in injun):
Ahmadinejad need'um hep big hot poker in'um ass, and buried in ant hill with'um molasses poured on'em head!
Why dont you send the photo some where be email, I'm sure there is some pointy head and some universtiy that could work it out.
Ok, I carefully studied the first one and I think it says, "Get milk, bread and eggs...."
Cat, that first one does remind me of a Cirque de Soleil number. I bet that was a tough crowd to impress, too.
Pic 2: You know, there was a big Spanish punitive raid on the natives barely a couple of miles from that spot. I think you are on to something with that.
Pic 3: Archaic German rectangle dancing or is it maybe line dancing Texas style?
- she of the eroding hoodoos
Heck, Bruno, they weren't deep at all, maybe .010 to .35 at best.
You really do need to lose that furrin' Northna accent one of these days if'n you're gonna wander that far South.
Mushy - you get distracted with multi-tasking and losing screens, too? Now I don't feel so bad.
You Cherokee ancestors didn't make it this far West but that translation is close enough for horseshoes. The locals would have dragged his butt through the prickly pear cactus first as a warm up though.
Oh Alex, MUST you be so logical and practical? It takes ALL the fun out of this exercise, you know. grin
Wow, Goddess! It does make you wonder what life was like before the Post-it note, doesn't it?!? At least the sticky stiff on the back of petroglyphs didn't wear out.
A very early "Kilroy was here?" Other than that... NO clue. None at all. Interesting, tho!
I like Goddess' read on the etchings. Or, maybe it's just that I'm being influenced by her great looking legs! Red
Some Hawaiian stuff I've seen looks similar, at least the shape of the bodies. They often just scribbled around doing family-tree kinda things. But I believe some of theirs are "marching lines" of figures that tend to depict a journey and the head-a count of participants.
A lot of stuff out West received additional "input" from late-comers making their own marks. That bounded-boarder "inscription" looks like "HI###TEEH##..? ~~ some European lettering/language in origin.
It's worth the time of some pointy-head to investigate it, that's what they live for if they can get a Grant to study - and ti might draw-off (piss-off) some of the gas laborers if the Pointyheads decide it's a worth establishing a site to disrupt everybody else' activities and elbow-in etc. Makes 'em feel valuable when they do that.
But without real close scrutiny, it's hard to tell just by looking which ones are the earliest, and that establishes a sequence of one engraving after the other, developing a time-line for the whole group...
Buck, then you're in the same boat as I - intrigued but haven't a clue. Very frustrating! Then again, there is a lot about this universe that has that effect on me.
That's why they call her Goddess, Red. You should wander over to her link - she has a GREAT sense of humor!
DirtCrashr, MANY thanks! I sure wish you would wander out here some time (long range time's a perk).
Sigh ... I do know what you mean about Grantarctica. I once discovered a serious factor in the decline of amphibians in NA that didn't link it to man-made pollution. The top experts in the field agreed BUT ... they had to go with the grant money. My amphibians were the big losers there.
Due to their location, at least the study of these petros wouldn't step on any gas field toes. And the industry is pretty good about not playing the heavy when it comes to unusual finds (if only for P.R. reasons) so if you run into any interested pointy heads, do let me know.
Okay, now I have to go back and add in your calls on those letters to my brain-wracking. Love it! Thanks again!
Generally speaking this stuff tends to be ascribe to the *Anasazi* - those Earlies, whoever they were - who pre-date the Hopi and Navajo and other known tribes. The figure doing the high-wire-act could be an ancestor sign, a father-figure designating the beginnings of the culture with lineage attachments to the sub-figures of their "adam-and-eve" (or some other origination) myth and other ancestral linkages.
If this site is isn't among a list of known sites already mapped, it could be a valuable link adding to the extent of knowledge about such Anasazi petroglyphs, including new knowledge about the range that the subjects are known and found, and how they expanded - showing the and age variety of environments into which they inhabited or just traveled.
Detailed stone analysis could age them and tell if they were in that location during a dry or wet period, and various hunting or other elements.
I don' figure they're Hawaiian anyhow. Long boat ride to get that far upstream! :-)
Cheers!
Well I do so enjoy ruining fun for people
dirtcrashr, there is definitely ample evidence of Anasazi out here. I also ran into some interesting lore about them which their successors generally consider taboo to speak of outside their tribes but would confirm more recent discoveries which academia is largely pooh-poohing.
In my adopted manana time, I will have to see if the feds have already documented this site. I know that the extent of this territory does exhaust their budget resources. In that respect, the gas field contributes to their database considerably with the mandatory archaeological reports they must submit with any new drilling site proposal. Not like the buggers have given us a copy of such reports when concerning our private land however - which makes one wonder just a little.
And who knows, I might find pictos of pineapples and out-riggers yet. After all, our creek is classified as navigable water (if you have a dune schooner ... perhaps).
Oh, I know you do, Alex. I'm thinking that you should have chosen engineering over theology - a MUCH better match up on that aspect.
That is one of the sites where the Anazasi came up from the underworld to populate this world. It is one of the entrances.
Oh, Moose, wasn't that the Hopi that took that route? I really do need to read some good books on what tribe thought what. Waiting for members of each tribe to happen by and stop to chat is going to be a long process at this rate. Better than any book when they do though!
I could swear I see something like HAMLTTENIZ in there somewhere. Maybe the dude was illiterate and din't know how to spell his own name? Looks kinda like the old latin inscriptions where there was no spacing between words, making them all run together. It's kinda hard to tell the Indian iscriptions from the later one in places. yea, like Dirtcrashr said, some dude will get his PhD on this friggin' thing. Betcha.
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