Kozmik_Ken
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Re: Rock Art Mystery
Oct 10, 2003, 09:54
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The pouring of milk into cup marks seems to have been quite a widespread practise. Have heard of reasons ranging from appeasment of local spirits/fairies to worship of the goddess Bridget.... all seem very much connected to the continuation of fertility rites... maybe not the original purpose, but memories of such uses would have remained strong in local folklore for many years.
Wanking priests??!! That the last time I go rock licking on Ilkley Moor.... plah!
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nigelswift
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Re: Rock Art Mystery
Oct 10, 2003, 09:59
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Did you make it up about the priests? Not sure if I hope you did or hope you didn't.
The pigments stayed in the French caves. But the evidence in UK seems so uncertain. Granules wedged in holes would never entirely weather away. If people haven't looked, they should. And what about the use of chalk, I'm sure some of Mr Denke's microfossils ought to be findable.
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Jane
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Re: Jimmy Somerville says ...
Oct 10, 2003, 10:05
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This is true, and he does wear tight trousers.
He's also got a head that looks like potato.
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FourWinds
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Re: Rock Art Mystery
Oct 10, 2003, 10:12
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No I didn't make it up. That is a very genuine theory :-)
Several stones still have names like 'The Lads Stones' or similar.
I remember Annexus once mentioning that he met a bunch of local lads on their way to 'rub their arses against a rock' .....
Pictures here by the way
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994256
I could do these without metal tools ...
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FourWinds
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Potato head
Oct 10, 2003, 10:14
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That's true too. Probably the tight troosers!
I always wanted to write in to That's Life saying that I had a dick shaped like a carrot, but I was too young and shy to do so ....
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Jane
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Re: Potato head
Oct 10, 2003, 10:26
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Hmmm... opens up a whole new dimension when considering the phrase 'going at it like rabbits'.
:-)
J
x
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Kozmik_Ken
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Re: Rock Art Mystery
Oct 10, 2003, 10:38
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The suggested heart shape looks more like a hoof print to me. The large cup type marks are a little perculiar is so much as they are on a vertical surface... not unheard of but rare. The smoothness could be down to rubbing over a long period of time. It's also more than possible that 'panels' of rock art were built up over a long time, maybe sometimes taking generations. So some shapes or symbols could come from different 'eras' than others.
That wanking priests thing has really disturbed my day! But it is possible that as the majority of cup marks are on flat surfaces, they could have been made to be recepticals. Perhaps milk replaced sperm as the tradition carried through the generations... eventually ending up in being painted white to represent sperm/milk... as public wanking became an arrestable offence (in all other places outside Norfolk at least)!
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Steve Gray
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Re: Rock Art Mystery
Oct 10, 2003, 11:09
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As you may have gathered, I have been more into Egyptian techniques than British. However, I don't see why they should differ all that much. They were both solving the same problems and had access to similar resources.
While we know that dolerite balls were used to "rough-out" large objects like obelisks, sarcophogii and colossii, it has long intrigued me as to how they accomplished their detailed work. I have examined granite hieroglyphs in the BM and some of them are several millimetres deep and are amazingly finely crafted, with very sharp internal corner radii.
It's known that the Egyptians used copper cylinders with a slurry of quartz sand to "core-drill" rings and holes in hard stones. There is even some evidence that they used copper slab saws. A similar technique could be used to make a cup-shape by using a blunt wooden stick with a sand slurry to grind out the shape. A simple "bow-drill" could have been used to rotate it.
However, I come back to the hieroglyphs and I reckon that they must have been picked or chiselled out using small hard stones attached to wooden or copper handles. Quartz is hard enought for many stones, but for some of the really tough ones they would have needed gemstones.
Egyptian mummies have been found with emeralds and other hard stones, so there is no doubt that suitable gems were available to them. The fact that no such tools have survived in the archaeological record is hardly surprising. They would have been a vauable resource and would most likely have been recycled as jewellery once their useful cutting lifespan had been exceeded.
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AtomicMutton
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Mysterious Rock Art
Oct 10, 2003, 11:15
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And the practise of painting certain fieldwalls in S. Northumberland with burnt ochre survived into the 1950's. It's still fairly distinct in some places. Dark rusty red - the same material was originally used to mark sheep and is recorded by Hardy in " ? " where there's a ruddle seller.
The bowl-carved stone that I know and own - the High Shield dobbie - is fairly soft sandstone. Unless it was calked with something - tallow perhaps - the liquid in there, whatever it was - and I think about blood - just permeates into the stone fairly briskly. In an hour or two in dry weather.
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Kozmik_Ken
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Re: Mysterious Rock Art
Oct 10, 2003, 11:22
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Perhaps the absorbing of the liquid into the rock is all part of the intention???... if some carvings were seen as a method of communion with the spirits or forces of the area, the taking of the liquid by the rock could have been seen of a way of passing the offering on.... just a guess.
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