Saturday, May 25, 2019

BUBBA GLYPHS - A WHOLE NEW CATEGORY:



Christensen, Dickey, and Freers, 
Rock Art of the Grand Canyon Region,
2013, Sunbelt Publications. p.222.

There is a term that has been coined to describe the markings left on rock art sites by the morons who vandalize the cliff faces and boulders throughout North America - Bubba glyphs. This descriptive term uses the word Bubba in the most pejorative meaning of the word - an ignorant, unthinking, uncultured slob who would deface these examples of ancient art without a second thought. 



First chamber of Sandia Cave
with painted graffiti,
New Mexico. Internet photo.

I have, unfortunately, too many examples of Bubba glyphs in my photo collection as I am sure many of you do too. I am not sure why I prefer the term Bubba glyph to the term vandalism unless it is the colorful implications referring to the person doing the marking, as I said above, an ignorant, uncultured slob - a Bubba. Also, vandalism implies just doing damage to what is there, Bubba glyph implies the adding of new markings (glyphs) - by Bubba - it is tighter in meaning as well as more colorful.


De Beque Canyon, Mesa
County, CO., Aug. 1981,
Peter Faris.

Our definition of vandalism is changeable, it keeps moving. For instance, leaving one's name carved into the rock used to be acceptable, think of all the emigrant's signed rocks along the route of the Oregon Trail. They did not think twice about doing it, and it was a perfectly commendable way of attempting to correspond  in the middle of the 19th century, and indeed, now we value them as historical documents. But today we would call that vandalism and there are legal ramifications. One person's signature is another person's vandalism. But Bubba remains constant. An ignorant, uncultured slob then would be an ignorant, uncultured slob now. A definition you can count on.

I have included a few examples here to illustrate the phenomenon. What examples have you seen?


NOTE: One image in this posting was retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If this image is not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them.

REFERENCES:


Christensen, Don D., Jerry Dickey, and Steven M. Freers, 
2013      Rock Art of the Grand Canyon Region, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego. 

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

WORLD CLASS ROCK ART IN KONKAN, INDIA:


Cow, Garge, Kulkarni, Apte, and Risbud,
2018, Photo used by permission.

On 4 May, 2019, in a posting titled "ANCIENT ROCK ART OF INDIA - THE WORLD'S EARLIEST?" I wrote "very early human occupation of the Indian sub-continent has been known for some time, and the Harappan civilization of the Indus River drainage was one of the earliest centers of city life in the world, almost rivaling the early civilizations of the Fertile Crescent. While we should have known to expect India to have a large amount of rock art they have sort of been off the rock art radar for quite some time. This is now being made up for with extensive scholarly studies of rock art on the sub-continent." (Faris 2019) And now, as if in response to this, we have this recent report on world class rock art from the southwest coast region of India known as Konkan.



Rhinoceros, Garge, Kulkarni, Apte,
and Risbud, figure 3, 2018. 
Photo used by permission.

"The western coastline of India encompassing coastal districts of Maharashtra, Goa, and Kamataka collectively known as Konkan, extends 720 kilometres north-south. Lying between the Arabian Sea to the west and the mountain ranges of Western Ghats to the east in the state of Maharashtra, Konkan includes the regions of Thane, Greater Mumbai, Raigarh, and Ratnagiri. Geographically this region is traversed by seasonal rivers that drain the heavy monsoonal rainfall from the crest of the Sahyadri Hills." (Garge et al. 2018:39)




Deer, Garge, Kulkarni, Apte,
and Risbud,  figure 4, 2018. 
Photo used by permission.

"Evidence of human existence during the prehistoric period is very limited in this region; however, there is continuous evidence of human settlement(s) throughout the historical, medieval and modern period." (Garge et al. 2018:40)



Elephant and many other animals,
Garge, Kulkarni, Apte, and Risbud, 
figure 4, 2018. 
Photo used by permission.

Rock art in this region had been intermittently reported from about 1990, but the first large scale systematic surveys were conducted by hobbyists (locals) from 1980 onward. Sudhir Risbud, later joined by Dhananjay Marathe and Surendra Thakudesai, explored the region and in 2010 formed a group called Unexplored Konkan to discover and record this rock art. Efforts snowballed as other locals became interested, and in 2018 the State Archaeology Department got involved and set up a fund for the study. "As of January 2019 there have been 52 confirmed and explored sites, and over 1,000 petroglyphs discovered. A further 16 sites have been confirmed but (have) yet to be fully explored and recorded." (Standage 2019) 




Elephant, Garge, Kulkarni, Apte,
and Risbud,  figure 4, 2018. 
Photo used by permission.

"They are spread almost over 170 km in length and 25 km in width in a straight line along the coast. After documenting these, they are classified into six categories as under:
Animal figures - Herbivores such as elephants, rhinos, deer family animals, pig, rabbit, buffalo, wild boar, monkey, etc. and carnivores like tiger, etc.
Birds - Peacock and large unidentified bird species.
Aquatic animals - Shark, stingray, and many more unidentified species of fish.
Amphibious animals - such as tortoise, alligators, etc.
Anthropomorphs - Human figures including mother goddess like figures.
Abstract - Various geometrical patterns." (Garge et al. 2018:42)

You will notice that the larger than life elephant in the fourth illustration, as well as the smaller one by the end of his trunk, appear to have their ears raised above their heads. Raised, flapping ears in an elephant is supposedly a sign of anger and I wonder if this is an attempt to portray the emotion of the subject of the petroglyph, the elephant.



Garge, Kulkarni, Apte, and Risbud,
 figure 10, 2018. 
Photo used by permission.



Garge, Kulkarni, Apte, and Risbud,
 figure 11, 2018. 
Photo used by permission.

There are also complicated geometric patterns that reminded me immediately of Rangoli designs like those created for Diwali and other Hindu festivals.



Rangoli design, Wikipedia,
Public Domain.

"Rangoli is an art form, originating in the Indian subcontinent, in which patterns are created on the floor or the ground using materials such as colored rice, dry flour, colored sand or flower petals. Designs are passed from one generation to the next, keeping both the art form and the tradition alive." (Wikipedia) While the main purpose of Rangoli designs is decoration, they are also thought to bring good luck, and they are traditionally done by the women of the family. (Wikipedia)

It would appear that the petroglyphs reported so far are only the beginning, and that we can hope to see considerably more wonderful rock art from India in the future.


NOTE: I want to thank Rhutvij R. Apte and his co-authors for their work, and for providing their paper and photos, and cooperating with RockArtBlog on this report. Check it out at the address below. Also, the reference above to Rangoli designs is wholly mine, this is not from their report.

REFERENCE:

Faris, Peter
2019 Ancient Rock Art of India - The World's Earliest?, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangoli

Standage, Kevin
2019 The Konkan Petroglyphs - Introduction, March 14, 2019, https://kevinstandagephotography.wordpress.com

Tejas M. Garge, B.V.Kulkarni, Rhutvij R. Apte, and Sudhir Risbud
2018 Petroglyphs in Konkan: Historiography, Recent Discoveries, and Future Endeavours, Purakala 2018, Volume 27-28, pages 39-47.

Thursday, May 9, 2019

ORIGINS OF THE OUTLINED CROSS VENUS SYMBOL:



Four-armed outlined cross Venus
symbol. Redrocks, AZ.
Photo Paul and Joy Foster.

The 4-armed symbol representing the planet Venus seems to have been ubiquitous prehistorically among cultures in Mexico and much of Central America. This, to such an extent that when we find it in contiguous areas like the American Southwest we also tend to apply that meaning to it. But how did that symbol, the outlined 4-armed cross or star, get to be associated with the planet Venus. In order to approach that question I had to look into the background of the subject.

In 1996, John B. Carlson wrote a paper titled "Transformations of the Mesoamerican Turtle Carapace War Shield, A Study in Ethnoastronomy", that looked at war shields from Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. He found that a common subject for the decoration of these symbols of conflict was the crucifix representing the planet Venus.

"It is now well understood that, at least from Late Formative times in Mesoamerica (around the beginning of the Common Era and probably much earlier), the planet Venus was viewed as a powerful male god of warfare and sacrifice. The evidence for this cult of Venus-regulated warfare and sacrifice comes from various archaeological sources, including inscriptions and iconography, from Spanish chronicles and ethnohistorical sources, and from Pre-Columbian codices." (Carlson 1996:100) Additionally, Carlson noted a frequent portrayal among Mayan (and Aztec) stela and other carvings, of a turtle carapace used by a god or important person as a shield (below).

One of the attributes of the turtle in Native American belief, and I assume Mesoamerican as well, is protection, because the turtle is protected by his shell. The step from that observation to the use of a large tortoise carapace as a shield is an obvious one. And, if Carlson, and others, are right about the connection between Venus and warfare, then the connection of the turtle to Venus is implied as well. But where did that symbol of the outlined 4-armed cross come from?


Carved shell turtle pendant,
Mayan, Tikal, 700-900 C.E.
John B. Carlson.

Carlson opened his paper with an illustration of a "Late Classic Maya carved shell pendant with the image of the eighth Maya day-sign Lamat, the symbol for the Great Star or Venus, represented on the carapace of a turtle. It was excavated in a Late Classic Period (ca. 700-900 C.E.; Imix ceramic phase) burial PNT-009 in structure 5C-49 in the Mundo Perdido group of Tikal by Juan Pedro Laporte." (Carlson 1996:1) This sign generally consists of an outlined cross with a circle in each quadrant.

Mayan glyph of the day sign
for Lamat, the eighth day.
The symbol for Venus.

This certainly establishes that there is a relationship, but not why a turtle is associated with Venus and warfare. He does go on "In Mesoamerican (and most Native American) iconography, turtles appear in a diversity of ritual and ceremonial contexts." (Carlson 1996: 106)


Mayan merchant warrior "Four Dog",
from Templo Rojo, Cacaxtla.
Turtle shell shield in lower right of picture.

Carlson lists a number of these, among the the following statement: "Turtle shells, usually from large marine turtles but also from those of smaller freshwater species, were used as shields in Mesoamerica, as demonstrated in iconographic and archaeological record and in the codices. . . . A beautiful example of such a sea turtle carapace war shield is the one carried by a historical character, the armed merchant warrior named "Four Dog," shown in a portrait as an impersonator of the Maya Merchant God L in the Templo Rojo of Cacaxtla. It is stowed on the lower back of the "cacaxtli" merchant's packframe which, in turn, is propped up by his lance. This Epiclassic mural likely dates from the 8th or perhaps 9th century C.E., placing it in the same general period as the Tikal shell." (Carlson 1996:107) He goes on to give many more examples of turtle/Venus/shield combinations but I think that this is satisfactory for our purposes.



Ecuadorian snapping turtle plastron.
Internet - Public Domain.

At this point I asked myself which turtle has such a symbol naturally on its upper shell (carapace), in other words what turtle is the actual model for the Venus symbol. That proved a little more difficult and a few hours of searching the internet failed to provide me with an actual model. At this point I realized that there are, in effect, two portions to a turtle's shell, the upper part known as the carapace, and the lower or under part, the plastron. Searching images of turtle plastrons fairly quickly provided the image I was looking for. The plastron of the snapping turtle has the basic shape of the Venus symbol with the four legs representing the circles in the four quadrants. Matching species of snapping turtles to the territory of the Maya the two likely candidates are the Common Snapping Turtle and the Ecuadorian Snapping Turtle, both of which have ranges that include some or all of the Mayan territory. And, it strikes me, if you want to use a turtle as a symbol of war, the turtle who can take off your finger or toe is certainly a good model to go by.


Personified star with eagle attributes,
Petroglyph Park, Albuquerque, NM.
Photo Peter Faris, 1988.

Carlson continues in his paper showing examples of the outlined cross, with or without the dots or circles in the four quadrants, as examples of Mesoamerican cultural influence on the Native peoples of North America. Some of that might indeed be true although I may not take it quite as far as he has. Where I part company with him, however, is his attribution of this Venus image to the personified star image of the Northern Rio Grande pueblo peoples. On August 11, 2012, I posted a column titled HALLEY'S COMET AND THE ORIGIN OF THE STAR KACHINA in which I suggested the possibility of Halley's Comet as the inspiration for that personified star symbol. I see the star with a tail as more probably a comet (a planet with a tail) than as the planet Venus. Ancillary subjects would also include turtle images in rock art. But,all in all the paper by John B. Carlson is an enjoyably impressive piece of scholarship, and I highly recommend it.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on this report you should read the original report at the site listed below.

REFERENCE:

Carlson, John B.
1996 Transformations of the Mesoamerican Turtle Carapace War Shield, A Study in Ethnoastronomy, p. 99-122, Archaeoastronomy, Volumes XII-XIII, Songs From the Sky: Indigenous Astronomical and Cosmological Traditions of the World, Von Del Chamberlain, John B. Carlson, M. Jane Young, editors, Center for Archaeoastronomy, College Park, MD, USA.

Saturday, May 4, 2019

ANCIENT ROCK ART OF INDIA - THE WORLD'S EARLIEST?



Cupule and groove, Bhimbetka, India.
Internet, Public Domain.

Very early human occupation of the Indian sub-continent has been known for some time, and the Harappan civilization of the Indus River drainage was one of the earliest centers of city life in the world, almost rivaling the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent. While we should have known to expect India to have a large amount of rock art they have sort of been off the rock art radar for quite some time. This is now being made up for with extensive scholarly studies of rock art on the sub-continent.

And these studies are proving fruitful indeed. Excavations in the Auditorium cave at Bhimbetka were conducted by V. S. Wakankar and others in the 1970s. They went down to Acheulian strata confirmed by quartzite hand axes as well as geomorphology. One of Wakankar's trenches also uncovered some petroglyphs.
"The Acheulian age of the two petroglyphs in Wakankar's trench II, six meters to the south, can be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. They were certainly completely covered by sediment at the end of the Acheulian deposition phase, so they could not have been visible since then." (Bednarik 1996:70)
In other words, these markings in the bedrock of Auditorium Cave were covered by deposits laid down during the Acheulian age so they certainly have to be at least that old.

What is being claimed as "the oldest known prehistoric art is the series of petrolglyphs discovered during the 1990s in two ancient quartzite caves in India; the Auditorium Cave at Bhimbetka and a rock shelter at Daraki-Chattan. This cave art consists of numerous cupules - non-utilitaria hemispherical cup-shaped depressions - hammered out of the rock surface. Geological investigations of the prehistoric sites by renowned archeologists Bednarik, Kumar and others, have established that this rock art pre-dates the Acheulean culture of the Lower Paleolithic era, and must therefore date from at least 290,000 BCE.
However, once more advanced dating methods become available, it is conceivable that these petroglyphs will turn out to be much older - perhaps originating as early as 700,000 BCE - although at present time this is mere speculation. Even so, the Bhimbetka cupules are four times older than the Blombos Cave art, which is the next oldest Stone Age Art." (anonymous, www.visual-arts-cork.com)

There is a tendency currently to consider cupules to be among the earliest form of rock art, perhaps because of a cupule's simplicity. I am not fully convinced of the arguments, but in this instance the dating evidence seems solid, and, if the date estimates on these cupules are correct they are certainly candidates for the world's oldest rock art.


NOTE: The image in this posting was retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If this image was not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Bednarik, Robert G.
1996    The Cupules on Chief's Rock, Auditorium Cave, Bhimbetka, The Artefact, Volume 19, pages 63-72.

Anonymous,
Bhimbetka Petroglyphs (290,000-700,000 BCE), Cupules at Auditorium Cave & Daraki-Chattan Rock Shelter, http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric, bhimbetka-petroglyphs.htm