What does the past look like from 200 miles up? A new generation of archaeologists has found that the history of civilization may look far clearer from the top of the atmosphere than it does from the bottom of a dig...
Chech it out @ www.popsci.com/scitech/ar...haeologists
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Re: The Space Archaeologists
Sun, May 25, 2008 - 10:19 AMMakes sense really. Like the lines at Nazca, you can't really see the whole thing unless you look at it from above. :) -
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Re: The Space Archaeologists
Sun, May 25, 2008 - 1:50 PMYeap... and it does spark the question, WHY? Why would they put so much effort in mapping out glyphs on the ground to be viewed from the air? -
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Re: The Space Archaeologists
Mon, May 26, 2008 - 7:27 AMThough perhaps less dramatic in some ways, and certainly smaller, we have some intaglios in California as well - here are the biggest, just north of Blythe:
www.jqjacobs.net/southwest/blythe.html
ronkilber.tripod.com/geoglyp...yphs.htm
images.google.com/images
There are six figures there (three anthromorphs, two zoomorphs, and an abstract spiral), the largest being an anthromorph about 175' tall.
Here it is in Google Maps:
maps.google.com/
With the Blythe intaglios, the prevailing theory is that they were made to mark ceremonial locations significant to the Mojave, or perhaps pre-Mojave, Indians (dating intaglios is more difficult than even dating petroglyphs, a controversial art in itself).
Why so big? Perhaps to be seen from the air, where some of the gods are presumed to reside. The wonder of such things is that no one truly knows.
If you find yourself driving between LA and Phoenix, it's well worth the brief detour to see these. Quite amazing, even from the ground. -
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Re: The Space Archaeologists
Wed, May 28, 2008 - 12:51 PM>>Yeap... and it does spark the question, WHY? Why would they put so much effort in mapping out glyphs on the ground to be viewed from the air?<<<
To appeal to the divine above is most of the theories to that question.
Giving their textile knowledge -- it is easy to seen how the could imposed the those figures to the techniques they used in the weaving of elaborate patters onto the desert ground...
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Re: The Space Archaeologists
Wed, May 28, 2008 - 2:35 PMHey - Thanks for those links! I'd forgotten about those intaglios.
Cheers,
MM
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Re: The Space Archaeologists
Thu, May 29, 2008 - 9:13 AMRichard, thank you so much for sharing, this is what I love about the tech world of today! We all can share bits and pieces of what we know, and all be teachers for each-other! Like the ancients seers of worlds long gone, we still share a common thread- love of knowledge! Keep it on the up and up~ -
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Re: The Space Archaeologists
Sun, June 1, 2008 - 12:58 PMThanks for the kind words. Too bad you're not down here in SoCal - I've been trying to get a few people together for a road trip to Tomo Kahni:
www.parks.ca.gov/
The village and ceremonial sites are interesting enough, but I'm especially keen to see the image in the cave there of the uwani azi ("Rock Baby"), the spirit said to be responsible for most rock art in the area - from Zigmond:
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There is a “baby” who dwells inside exposed rock areas. His name, "uwani azi", is explained as being derived from the sound of his cry: "uwa uwa,” though it is clearly related to "uwa" iici, infant. Since he is linked to rocky regions, he is believed to be engaged in painting the pictographs found scattered throughout Kawaiisu territory. Though no reason was forthcoming from informants to account for this activity, the uwani azi never stops working at it. Thus the patterns may change from day to day, and the Indians commonly react to a description of a certain group of pictographs by saying, “It wasn’t like that when I last saw it.” The suggestion that humans may have been the artists is invariably rejected as absurd.
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Both the Rock Baby and his pictographs are ‘out of bounds” for people. The paintings may be looked at without danger, but touching them will lead to quick disaster. One who puts his fingers on them and then rubs his eyes will not sleep again but will die in three days. Some informants said that this would be the consequence even if the eyes were not rubbed.
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But the real danger lurks in the uwani azi himself. He is an omen of disaster. Though rarely seen, he is described as “just like a baby,” but his sex is indeterminate. He has a little black hair. Usually he is heard rather than seen, and his cry is a tuuwaruugidi. A number of incidents are related in which the presence of the uwani azi brings death. In the following two stories the people involved are said to be ‘South Fork’ (Tubatulabal) rather than Kawaiisu.
Some South Fork people went above Onyx (on the South Fork of the Kern River) to get chia. One of them heard a baby crying on a rock so he went up, got him, and brought him back in his arms. The man told the others to come and see him, but they put their hands over their eyes because they were afraid to look at him. Only two glanced at the baby. Then a girl told the man to take him back, and he did. But when the man put the baby down and stepped away, he could see that the baby had a cradle tied on him. The baby got up and walked right into the rock.
Sometimes that baby lives in the water near a spring. One day a Tubatulabal woman was going from South Fork to Tule River. She was walking across the Greenhorn Mountains. She came to a spring and put water in her water‑bottle. Her baby, whom she carried in a cradle, began to cry. He kept on crying so the mother nursed him as she walked along. While he nursed, he kept looking at his mother's eye. He started to swallow her breast. When she arrived home, her husband tried to pull the baby away but could not do so. Finally the husband cut off the breast. The baby swallowed it and ran off. The mother died. The uwan azi [at the spring] had turned the woman's baby into an uwan azi.
Sadie Williams heard the cry of the Rock Baby in the summer of 1947 and a few days later a neighbor died.
A couple were lying together on a cot out of doors. The woman heard a baby crying under the cot. She told the man, but he said he didn’t hear anything. They looked under the cot but saw nothing. At about this time the woman lost a grandchild. It was the cry of the uwan azi.
About a month before her baby died, GG heard the Rock Baby crying in the rocks. For several nights before the death, she heard a coyote howling near the house. On successive nights, the howling sounded closer. After the Infant died, it ceased.
Henry Weldon had an experience at a pictograph site, but he did not mention the Rock Baby or any other being as the cause. He was riding his horse near a pictograph rock, but the horse stopped before the rock was passed and refused to go farther. Dismounting, Henry attempted unsuccessfully to pull the animal. He mounted again, but the horse seemed to be pulled down and fell over on its side. One of the horse’s legs lay on Henry’s leg and neither could get up. When it looked as if they night be held there all night, Henry pulled out his gun and shot toward the pictograph rock. Then the horse got up and they went on their way.
...
vredenburgh.org/tehachapi/...natural.htm
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Also useful is this paper from before the site was protected, which describes three sets of investigations done at what the author calls "Teddy Bear Cave":
www.pcas.org/Vol37N1/Sutton.pdf
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