Strange Rock Carving

As one who has spent a good deal of time in my life carving in different mediums, looking at the picture, suggests to me, that this has been there for a very long time. Edges look considerably weatherworn/waterworn for this to have been carved recently. It does not liken to any native american glyphs that I'm familiar with, however it does seems to have a European feel to it's origins, Nordic perhaps

reply to post by nenothtu


I can't link the show, but it made the history or dicovery channel...
The symbal looks very much like the symbals that Jess James used!
I have seen them here, I'm in Missouri, close to the Kansas Oklahoma corner, and its well known that he was a map/marker, and used a chickens footprint in a circle....
Like many of the KGC did and I'm further convinced now than ever!

I would not disturb anything and go buy a compass and get to looking around before spring and the leaves cover the view, you have ATM..

But, to get a compass bearing and really look around, you realize that distance to the river, from that rock is, nothing for real distance.
As far as native ppl's and pre-car hwy era's go...its litterally, just a small hike from a water source, not even an hour on foot.

Love the pic, keep us informed!
Please do not go digging and disturbing, myself I would look for evidence of a settlement between it and the river, and will go get a link or two now for the Jesse James stuff...got one its not the one I wanted but you'll get the idea....this one has a tree carving, but JJ is known for rock carvings too.
www.freemasonrywatch.org...

again ty for the pics...love it!

ETA I'm convinced now 90% + that this is/has something to do with KGC!



[edit on 31-3-2010 by Doc Holiday]

reply to post by nenothtu


I have ties with locals (PA) whom know alot regarding glyphs:

"I don't know if I've seen that particular one, but the theory is that they are historic, and were either used to leach lye from wood ashes, or tar from pine cones. Thanks for sending it."

this is what he said...
He is president of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology and a board member of the Eastern States Rock Art Research Association. He wrote a chapter on the Safe Harbor petroglyphs for the book “The Rock Art of Eastern North America, Capturing Images and Insight,” edited by Carol Diaz-Granados and James R. Duncan, which was published in 2004.

Originally posted by paratus
reply to post by nenothtu

 

I have ties with locals (PA) whom know alot regarding glyphs:

"I don't know if I've seen that particular one, but the theory is that they are historic, and were either used to leach lye from wood ashes, or tar from pine cones. Thanks for sending it."

this is what he said...
He is president of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology and a board member of the Eastern States Rock Art Research Association. He wrote a chapter on the Safe Harbor petroglyphs for the book “The Rock Art of Eastern North America, Capturing Images and Insight,” edited by Carol Diaz-Granados and James R. Duncan, which was published in 2004.

That could work, depending upon the 'tilt' of the rock, and whether there is a flow to a 'spout'. Still seems like a lot of labour when one could prop a pan on a few rocks. Thanks for checking, though.

reply to post by nenothtu


Read my U2U message AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

It would be in your best interests, don't delay.

reply to post by nenothtu


You're more than familiar, it appears.
When I attempted to investigate my own families supposed Melugeon roots, I was overwhelmed.
Theories about Portugese, Moors, Turks and Sephardic Jews. Each claiming historic, linguistic, and genetic proof.
Scared me away.
I did notice that ( other than in the "purist" theory of Goins) Wise County, VA along with Pike and Letcher counties in KY figured predominantly. Not to awful far away.
I guess I'd hoped it was akin to something in one of those suspected cultures. It would be great to have yet another book on the subject.
Enjoy your search! Can't help but envy you, as they say around my home.

reply to post by 23refugee


Sorry. I obviously meant "too far away". Barely literate.

Originally posted by Full_Vision
reply to post by nenothtu

 

Very interesting find! the first thoughts were its likeness to Yggdrasil and the fact that it looks very bind rune like..was there possibly a building/house nearby at some time in the past that you know of? very strange,. especially if it hadnt been noticed previously, i know hunters and how not much escapes their eye..great thread

I have two "cabins" at the top of the ridge nearby, which at one time were considered "houses". They are probably the closest current structures, and are both close to 100 years old. My dad was raised in one of them, and the other was occupied by my grandmother's sister's family.

the closest structure at any time was occupied by an old woman, who has been dead for years now, the house fallen in. I also have a log barn nearby, but it is fading fast, and no longer useable.

When my dad was a kid, he roamed all over that place, hunting, and he never mentioned this rock to me, which tells me HE never saw it, as he's told me a great many other curiosities of the area he stumbled across, but he never mentioned this one.

It was one of his brothers who stumbled across it about a week ago, and neither he nor any of the other surviving brothers has ever seen it before.

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


That could work, depending upon the 'tilt' of the rock, and whether there is a flow to a 'spout'. Still seems like a lot of labour when one could prop a pan on a few rocks. Thanks for checking, though.

Don't forget its Appalachia. I'll wade the creek barefoot before I'll wet a pair of shoes. Store-bought comes dear.

Originally posted by Logarock

"Holler marker" I made that for lack of a better word. What I mean is that if a small group of settlers moved up into that area off the main highways of old which were creek beds and river banks in that terrain, they may have put that out for a marker. A marker to indicate that someone already lived up there or this is the place for something, had been claimed ect ect.

The main creek that this run flows into is it even somewhat easy to walk? And that bottom area that all these runs empty into, does it go all the way to the Ohio River? Does that bottom posses any even small fields that a person could grow corn in or is it steep and rocky all the way down to the next largest water way?
Could someone walk down inot there following the waterways from the Ohio River?

Yes, the bottoms are very fertile, and fairly level. My great-great-great grandfather owned several hundred acres there, including the part that holds this stone, and I understand he used to raise miles of corn there.

The stone is on or pretty near one of the old Shawnee trails from the Ohio Country going east, which tied into one of the branches of the old Warrior's path near Seneca Rocks, so I'd say it was fairly traversible by foot back then. The Settlers, however, came in from the other direction, rather than from the Ohio Territory.

The stone itself is far enough from the trail to make me think it wasn't any sort of trail marker, though. In Southwest Virginia, where I was raised, the indians used cairns of piled up rocks as trail markers. This stone is set in the ground, in a stream (a likely approach), but is up a "blind" hollow, which leads to nowhere, (an unlikley approach for a trail).

Most indian trails ran along either major watercourses, or along ridgelines (where the walking was easier due to thinner vegetation) since they followed previously established game trails. The settlers used the same trails, since they were already established, but came from the other direction.

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck

Originally posted by amari
Suggestion: Go to the location of the Strange Rock Carving and take a

magnetic resonance reading and take a top of the line metal detector

and sweep the area. I will U2U ^Y^

...and if you dig anything up, it immediately stops becoming proof of anything.

Everybody has a little Indy Jones in them...but even he was a looter. If you raid a site, you are a looter. Again, I say resist the temptation, and get the pros involved. Archaeologists are fully aware that in the practice of their science, the database gets destroyed. That is why it is such a meticulous process. I repeat as well, that if a paradigm is to be changed, the process involves a rigorous set of rules and standards. Looting a site immediately disqualifies it from any relevance...and I think you're hoping for more out of this. Thanks again for starting this very interesting thread...and I assume that the 'branches' do not bear any resemblance to the topography, right?

Don't worry, nothing will be dug up by looters. I can't stress strongly enough how dangerous this place is to strangers, and none of the locals who know (by now) about this find have any urge to dig. They know what would be involved. One of my cousins is hell bent on getting archaeologists involved, who will be in this area in a few weeks on an unrelated matter, and most of the rest are equally against it, fearing the publicity involved will bring in a circus of outsiders and gawkers, none of which they're going to put up with.

Several years ago a gentleman threatened to burn down MY house and shoot me as I emerged, just because I was present on "his" hunting ground (it was MY property). I had to rather forcefully convince him of what a bad idea that was, and stress that if he wanted his kin to ever know his final resting place, he'd best leave me alone and find another hunting ground, for health reasons. I mention this only to illustrate the character of the locals, and to re-stress how rough a place this can be, especially for strangers.

The "branches" of the tree DO bear a cursory resemblance to the local topography (branches marking hollows and water courses), as can be seen by comparing the photo of the stone with the topo map I posted a few pages back, but the stone itself is not located on the "trunk", or even on one of the "branches", which makes me question whether or not it's some sort of map, in spite of the superficial resemblance.

Originally posted by Logarock
Face due east and west and what do you see?

Hillsides, maybe 30 meters away at my eye level (roughly 6 feet off the ground) and quite a bit closer at my ankle level. The slope is probably close to 50 or 60 degrees, on both sides.

By the way the place you have marked as location isnt really a holler with branches. And it looks like its far enough up in there that you couldnt see it form the larger creek.

It's not a "hollow", with branching daughter hollows, but it's what you would call a "blind" hollow, itself one of those daughter hollows of a larger topographic system. A "twig" of a "branch" of a "tree", if you will.

No, you can't see it from the main hollow. You can't even see it from the mouth of it's own little hollow.

reply to post by nenothtu


I know what you mean by saying your family never saw it before. I have parts of my property that I can't stand upright on, other parts thick with briers, not to mention rattesnakes and copperheads. The three streams we have change with the weather, so anything could be hidden underneath.

My best hunch is that you have a very old "property" mark, which was often a corner described as being in the "center of "said" stream". It probably was in the period after the original land grants and before statehood, so the records are not necessarily in your state.

Some of the older original settler "european" graves in our area are built like a low stone fence in a grave shape with large flat "capstones" on top. These capstones were usually engraved in some shape and fashion. If there is a gravesite nearby on the hilside, it's possible it was looted and the stone shoved away downhill, eventually into the stream.

[edit on 3/31/2010 by alttracks]

Originally posted by 23refugee
reply to post by nenothtu

 

You're more than familiar, it appears.
When I attempted to investigate my own families supposed Melugeon roots, I was overwhelmed.
Theories about Portugese, Moors, Turks and Sephardic Jews. Each claiming historic, linguistic, and genetic proof.
Scared me away.
I did notice that ( other than in the "purist" theory of Goins) Wise County, VA along with Pike and Letcher counties in KY figured predominantly. Not to awful far away.
I guess I'd hoped it was akin to something in one of those suspected cultures. It would be great to have yet another book on the subject.
Enjoy your search! Can't help but envy you, as they say around my home.

I was raised in Southwest Virginia. I went to college in the summers (while I was in high school) at Clinch Valley College, in Wise. That's how I'm familiar with the Melungeons of that area. Some of them were my frinends back then.

I ran across the escaped Spanish slave story recently, while researching the history of a recently discovered Spanish fort (Fort San Juan) in North Carolina, and to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet tied that escape (in the mid to late 1500's) to the possibility of their inclusion in the Melungeon mix. Give it time, I'm sure someone will make the connection as a possibility!

reply to post by nenothtu


Off topic, I know.
As a child, Wise was one of our shopping destinations when we'd "go to town".
Years later , as I wander this large, multi-cultural city in the Northeast, I'm often stunned to see the faces of my paternal grandmothers' family amongst those of many more recent immigrants. My family may not have resembled most of their neighbors, but they sure as hell wouldn't stand out here.

Originally posted by twohawks
As one who has spent a good deal of time in my life carving in different mediums, looking at the picture, suggests to me, that this has been there for a very long time. Edges look considerably weatherworn/waterworn for this to have been carved recently. It does not liken to any native american glyphs that I'm familiar with, however it does seems to have a European feel to it's origins, Nordic perhaps

Do you know any thing about Menonite hex symbols?
The Morovians used a lot off stone as well.
Stone stock fences around the barns.
I does seem somwhat Norman IMO

reply to post by nenothtu


sSorry, off topic again.
Thanks for the Spanish slave info. It brings to mind our treasured family story about my Hillbilly mother and her sisters being snatched by INS and detained briefly at the border while on a bus tour of San Diego. Apparently others see a resemblance.
Won't bother you again.

reply to post by spikey


I should of stated lawsuits against the property owners, not the OP. We live in a very litigious society nowadays, and even if they are frivolous lawsuits, the owner has to show up in court or risk losing by default.

Here is an interesting site from Britian:
www.stone-circles.org.uk...
It explains their symbolism. This is a little more like you stone carving:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/161c77b75429.jpg[/atsimg]
This one is Goa. That's India.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f51606f2f8cb.jpg[/atsimg]
This is also from India



[edit on 3/31/2010 by zachi]

Wow cant believe this got 10 pages of replys. IT IS NOT A CARVING, it is a material used by masons to fix defects in cement and rock. You can see that it was a strip and it overlays the circle on left and right sides and it was molded in the middle. Whom ever was doing this did a pretty sloppy job.