HARAKBUT STONE FACE IN PERU:

The Harakbut stone face as it is approached in its river gorge. Online image, public domain.

Is it? Or is it not? This large rock formation which seems to resemble a crude sculpture of a human face is the subject of the debate – is it natural or man-made? These large, natural manifestations have always fascinated humans – how can geology resemble life so closely?

“The Harakbut Face, known by the native Harakbut tribesmen as the Rostro, which means face, is located in Peru’s Amarakaeri Communal Reserve. This vast area is situated in the southern Amazon region of Peru, and encompasses a region of 402,335.62 hectares (994,192 ac.). Located in the Madre des Dios region, the reserve takes up a great part of the homeland of the Harakbut tribe.” (Vuckovic 2020) This great stone face is a wonderful example of the phenomenon. Not only does it closely resemble a gigantic human visage from some angles, it is a stern visage.

The Harakbut stone face closeup. Online image, public domain.

“It is estimated that this native tribe lived in the basins of the Colorado and Madre des Dios rivers for several thousand years, and numerous complex myths and legends have survived to this day. One mentions the Harakbut as the ‘Warrior People,’ destined to protect the ancient forests of the Amarakaeri. Today the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve is home to ten indigenous communities and is hailed as Peru’s most pristine environment in the Amazon rainforest.” (Vuckovic 2020)

Humans seem to have an inborn tendency to accord phenomena such as this a spiritual significance. Although we now know about Pareidolia, in the eras before the modern science of psychology such resemblances seemed miraculous.

The Harakbut stone face closeup. Online image, public domain.

“Among the Harakbut, this location is utterly sacred. Agreed that it represents their most distant ancestor, these rock faces are said to be created by Toto, a powerful primordial spirit. However, whether or not this face is a man-made object remains debatable. Important research that was conducted on site can imply that this is in fact a lithological structure, a clear result of geomorphological processes. This again points us towards the widespread phenomena of pareidolia, through which the human eye often spots familiar symbols and shapes from natural objects and things. If this is in fact a fully natural creation, it is unmistakably lifelike and nature really outdid itself. But some staunch believers can still adhere to the claim that the Harakbut face is made by ancient man.” (Vuckovic 2020) And when approached from the one side it is amazingly convincing, although some missing elements like nostrils, ears and lips are apparent. Even seen from almost directly to the front it is still human face-like. It is only when the other side is seen that it becomes obvious that the so-called ‘Hakabut Face’ is the result of natural geomorphic processes, and is not manmade.

“Allegedly there are several of these big heads spread over the vast Harakbut territory, but El Rostro remains the iconic one. Located in a remote area of the rainforest, it is difficult to reach, requiring a challenging trek. But the sight of this incredible structure is a reward in itself. Perched over a wild and rapid flowing Amazonian river, emerging from the dense foliage, is an oddly realistic human face, its sharp lines jutting from the cliff face.” (Amazing Nature Blog 2023)

The Harakbut stone face. Note how the illusion falls apart on the right side view. Online image, public domain.

“This sacred location is made from sedimentary rock, aged and covered by a thin layer of bright green moss. One glance – both from profile and front – is enough to let you know that it is, without mistake, a human face peering towards the jungle. A sharp, aquiline nose with oddly straight and precise lines, combined with the jutting brow and prominent under bite lower jaw, all portray a serious and powerful male figure, akin to a great god, a tribal chieftain, or a venerated ancestor.” (Amazing Nature Blog 2023) While we do not have the right to demean the Harakbut for their beliefs, as modern, 21^st century Westerners, we should recognize a duty to take such an example for what it really is – a superstition, but, also an amazing freak of nature.

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 these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Amazing Nature Blog, 2023, The Mystery of the Harakbut Face: Man-Made Monument or Natural Phenomenon?, 25 April 2023, https://wildwingsnaturez.vercel.app/the-mystery-of-the-harakbut-face-man-made-monument-or-natural-phenomenon. Accessed online 29 April 2023.

Vuckovic, Aleksa, 2020, The Harakbut Face: Man-Made Monument or Natural Phenomenon?, 8 November 2020, https://www.ancient-origins.net. Accessed online 29 April 2023.

WE MAY FINALLY HAVE AN EXAMPLE OF DENISOVAN ART- A LION CARVED OUT OF MAMMOTH IVORY IS ATTRIBUTED TO A DENISOVAN ARTIST:

Denisova Cave, Russia. Internet photograph, public domain.

While science still has a lot to learn about the mysterious hominids known as Denisovan after the cave in the Altai Mountains, Siberia, Russia, where they were first discovered, we now have a work of art and a number of artifacts that have been attributed to them. A small, carved piece of mammoth tusk that has been interpreted as the remaining piece of a broken carving of a cave lion (panthera spelea).

European cave lion. Image from dinotopia.com.

“This is the first such sculptural representation known in Siberia, throughout North and Central Asia, and the first zoomorphic sculpture of such antiquity. Zoomorphic figurines are known in the history of the Siberian Paleolithic, but they are usually no older than 23-21 thousand years. The age of this one is not yet established, but it is located in a stratigraphic context, which, according to the radiocarbon analysis performed at Oxford University and optically stimulated luminescence, is about 45 thousand years old. The chronology will still be specified, but the image is, in any case, not less than 30 thousand years old. This means, it is the most ancient artifact of this kind,’ says Head of the Department of Archeology of the Stone Age IAE SB RAS, Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Mikhail Shunkov.” (Russian Geographical Society) When the above stated “first such sculptural representation” it did not mean the first one ever discovered, many others have been previously discovered. It meant that as far as we know it may have been the first one created in that region.

Partial figurine identified as a cave lion. Image from Siberiantimes.com.

Carved figurine superimposed over a cave lion silhouette. Online image, public domain.

The figurine is carved out of mammoth ivory. The scientists believe that this means that the material had been carried to the site from 100 – 120 km away from Denisova from the Northern foothills of the Altai mountains. (Russian Academy of Sciences) Apparently there has been no evidence of mammoths within that distance of Denisova Cave to this point. This may, however, be a case of “your lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.”

Hematite crayon from Denisova Cave. Internet photograph, public domain.

“There have been other intriguing objects found within the cave. Some 30 pieces of mammoth ivory have been recovered from the cave. Among the most unique objects are fragments of a glistening green chlorite stone bracelet, beads made of ostrich eggs – and an ancient reddish-brown processed hematite ‘crayon.’” (Seidel 2019)

While the Cave Lion carving is tentatively dated to 45,000 BP by optically stimulated luminescence dating of the stratigraphic layer it was found in, many of the other recovered artifacts cannot share that age with it. One that very possibly does is the hematite ‘crayon,’ but I do not believe that the green stone bracelet can be anywhere near that age. Also carved of mammoth ivory are an eyed needle and what the discoverers are calling a tiara, a mammoth ivory piece that they interpret as a headband that tied around the forehead to keep long hair out of the wearer’s eyes. These may also be attributable to Denisovans, or may not. The reported dates are still not generally accepted, indeed, some believe that these mammoth ivory carvings are attributable to Neanderthals who lived in the Denisova Cave at a later date.

Mammoth ivory headband from Denisova Cave. Image from siberiantimes.com.

“In 2018, a simple tiara made from wooly mammoth ivory was found buried in its depths. It had a hole ground into its rounded end, where a cord was used to tie it at the back of the head. It’s been dated as having been made some 45,000 to 50,000 years ago. It was made to keep hair out of its wearer’s eyes. And it was discarded once it was broken. Was it made by the Denosivans? Or Neanderthals?” (Siedel 2019)

“Here we likely deal with another, more ancient culture, because there was not a single piece of bone belonging to a Homo Sapiens found in the cave’ Novosibirsk Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography researcher Alexander Fedorchenko told the Siberian Times. It’s a pressing question. And one not easily answered.” (Siedel 2019)

So, while at this time we cannot be certain who actually created these artifacts, the possibility that one or more of them may have been Denisovan is certainly exciting.

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 these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Liesowska, Anna and Svetlana Skarbo, 2019, Cave Lion Figurine Made of Woolly Mammoth Tusk Found at Denisova Cave, 20 November 2019, Siberian Times, https://siberiantimes.com. Accessed online 28 March 2023.

Russian Academy of Sciences, 20 November 2019, An ancient figure of a cave lion was discovered in the Denise Cave, Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, https://www.sbras.info. Accessed online 29 April 2023.

Russian Geographical Society, 2019, An Ancient Cave Lion Figurine Discovered in Denisova Cave, 24 November 2019, https://www.rgo.ru/en/ariticle/ancient-cave-lion-figurine-discovered-denisova-cave. Accessed online 28 March 2023.

Seidel, Jamie, 2019, Denisovan discoveries: Siberian cave studies reveal secrets of our mysterious lost ancestors, 31 January 2019, https://www.adelaidenow.com. Accessed online 8 May 2023.

 

UNICORNS IN ROCK ART AND MYTHOLOGY:

Lascaux "Unicorn", Lascaux Cave, France. Online internet image, public domain.

Extinct Elasmotherium. Online internet image, public domain.

Drawing of Elasmotherium, Rouffignac Cave, France. Online internet image, public domain.

On 28 July 2018, I posted a column titled The Paleolithic Unicorn – Found At Last, about the enigmatic painting of an animal in Lascaux Cave in France that has straight horns coming straight forward out of his head and who is sometimes called the Lascaux Unicorn. I likened it to the extinct Elasmotherium, a relative of the rhinoceros with a single horn, sometimes called the Paleolithic unicorn. While I was in no way expressing the opinion that the animal pictured in Lascaux was meant to represent an Elasmotherium, I was making the point that there had been a single-horned animal back millennia ago, and the curious coincidence of the naming of that Lascaux beast’s image. (Faris 2018)

European unicorn, painting by Maerten de Vos, 1532-1603. Online internet image, public domain.

In this column, however, I am going to look at rock art of single-horned animals from South Africa, originating in San mythology. It has often been assumed that the image of a single-horned quadruped may have originated with something like an oryx seen from the side with its horns perfectly aligned. This may be part of the story, and there are San representations of antelope-like animals seen from the side with only one horn represented. It also needs to be pointed out that these San examples have the horn projecting backwards from its natural head location, not forward from the forehead as in the European belief in unicorns. It may be, however, that European visitors to such rock art sites might interpret them as portraying some version of the unicorn they believed in so fervently.

From a panel near Indwe, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Photographs by Witelson, 2023, Fig. 7. 

“Europeans sought unicorns and rock paintings of them almost as soon as they set foot on the shores of southern Africa. Their interest stemmed from their cultural beliefs, which they transposed onto the African continent and its people. Against this Western backdrop, many early travelers searched for rock paintings of unicorns, which some considered evidence of the creature’s existence. – Rock paintings have thus played a significant role in South Africa’s unicorn lore. - Ultimately, however, the images were dismissed as depicting figments of the imagination. For centuries, colonial beliefs about unicorns silently mixed with indigenous ones. But, whereas physical proof became Holy Grail, indigenous beliefs were regarded skeptically as rumor or hearsay. Without realizing this distinction, European colonists sought after the unicorn, assuming, at least initially, that it was the creature they knew.” (Witelson 2023:2) The hubris of the colonials inevitably looked to European ‘scientific knowledge’ as more true and real than indigenous knowledge about their own territory.

“Perhaps the most famous South African search for unicorns was reported by John Barrow, ‘Late Secretary to the Earl of Macartney, and Auditor-General of Public Accounts, at the Cape of Good Hope.’ He sought evidence for real rather than fanciful unicorns, which he considered of potentially biblical importance to Natural History. Any biological specimen would therefore have had a place in the nascent world of European science. Barrow thought the ‘living original’ might yet be found north and east of the Bamboesberg mountain range in what is today the Eastern Cape Province. There, ‘the people [Bosjemans or Bushmen] who make them [the paintings] live.’ Although he managed to arouse some enthusiasm for an expedition to go in search of it, he never ventured east outside the Colony.” (Witelson 2023:3) In this case the fact that unicorns were mentioned in the bible became a colonial ‘scientific truth’ where the beliefs of locals were essentially eventually discounted as superstition.

“Locals must have noticed something interesting about the British when they first arrived. They wore symbols on their uniforms of familiar animals, the lion and the unicorn. The British were likely amazed that the locals were aware of unicorns, and could even describe them in detail. Then the discovery by colonists of ancient rock art – depictions of unicorns as commonplace animals – caused imaginations to race. What followed were concerted search efforts fueled by a desire to capture a creature of both biblical importance and interest to natural history scientists. It was biblical passages that led to the unicorn being adopted as a royal symbol, and any question of the creature’s reality was, especially in light of new evidence, necessarily so.” (Jackson 2023)

Illustration from Witelson, 2023, Fig 8, originally from Stow and Bleek, 1930.

Barrow did manage to visit several rock shelters eventually, and produced a sketch of a very Western-looking unicorn, the original for which has never been found, and is widely considered to have been either a hoax or overactive imagination in interpreting a very damaged rock art image. (Witelson 2023) “The cynical views of Barrow’s and other unicorn images are partly rooted in a perspectival argument: because the animal is depicted side-on, one horn obscures the second. It is one of three explanations that arose when, unsurprisingly, the ‘real’ unicorn was not found. One claimed, as we have seen, that the rhinoceros had been the unicorn all along. A second, which we have also encountered, suggests that the gemsbok was the inspiration behind the unicorn because one straight horn covers the other when viewed from a lateral perspective, and males often lose a horn in the rutting season. A third claimed that the unicorn had never existed outside imagination. Though this third explanation resembles the contemporary understanding of unicorns, all three explanations are based entirely on the European search for a European idea.” (Witelson 2023:6)

“Importantly, the perspectival argument was refuted over a century-and-a-half ago. The English traveler and artist Thomas Baines noted (correctly) that San images of two-horned animals invariably have two horns. Baines thus recognized that San images faithfully represent whatever the image-makers wanted to depict. Whatever perspectival ‘errors’ may be perceived, the painters ‘never fail to give each animal its proper complement of members.” (Witelson 2023:6) And, although many San animal portrayals might be thought to be cases of what Witelson calls ‘perspectival error’, he then presents us with some examples of this art that are decidedly one-horned.

Southeast of Molteno, South Africa. photograph by Stephen Townley Bassett.

One panel of lovely antelopes from a site southeast of Molteno has the necks and heads of two of the animals turned so that a second horn would be seen, and they are not.

Drawing of panel from rockshelter south of Flaauwkraal, Eastern Cape province, South Africa. Illustration from Witelson, 2023, Fig. 5.

Closeup of upper left figure from rockshelter south of Flaauwkraal, Eastern Cape province, South Africa.photograph by Witelson, 2023.

And from a rock shelter south of Flaauwkraal in the Eastern Cape comes another panel of antelopes with their heads turned showing that they only possess one horn. These portrayals illustrate the San belief in unicorns as well as their artistic ability.

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. Other photographic credits are as listed. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

PRIMARY REFERENCES:

Faris, Peter, 2018, The Paleolithic Unicorn – Found At Last?, 28 July 2018, Published online by https://rockartblog.blogspot.com.

Jackson, Justin, 2023, Chance cross-cultural unicorn concepts lost in translation, 16 March 2023, Phys.org News online. Accessed online 16 March 2023.

Witelson, David M., 2023, Revisiting the South African Unicorn: Rock Art, Natural History and Colonial Misunderstandings of Indigenous Realities, Published online by Cambridge University Press, 13 March 2023. Accessed online 16 March 2023.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Barrow, J., 1801, Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa in the Years 1797 and 1798, Volume 1, Cadell & Davies, London.

Stow, G.W. & Bleek, D., 1930. Rock Paintings in South Africa. London

REPLY TO A COMMENT ON 25 APRIL 2015 COLUMN "DINOSAURS IN ROCK ART - PERU'S ICA STONES":

Photograph of Ica Stone illustrating a Triceratops with back fins - a fabrication. Internet photograph, public domain.

On May 1, 2023, I receibed a new comment from Anonymous to my posting of 25 April 2015 about the Ica Stones hoax in Peru. I am sorry I cannot credit you with this query, but comments come to me Anonymously with no return address.  

Photograph of an Ica Stone showing Stegosaurus in the upper right. Internet photograph, public domain.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post DINOSAURS IN ROCK ART - PERU'S ICA STONES: "My problem with this finding that we never existed at the same time is this, how did they know in the 1930s that this animal had fins on its back when we just found out in 2019 when we found a fossil of one? If it was a fake they would have never put fins on it, they would have gone with the excepted (accepted?) narrative of the time which said there was none." 

Well Anonymous, I thank you for your comment and the opportunity to address it. There were two so-called dinosaurs with plates or fins on their backs in the illustrations that accompanied my column, one appeared to be a Stegosaurus and the other an obvious Triceratops. Now the Triceratops never had fins on their backs so that one is an obvious fabrication (lie).

Skeleton of stegosaurus. Photograph by Susannah Maidment

 et al., Natural History Museum, London. 

As to Stegosaurus, I actually live just a few miles from where the first one was discovered by Arthur Lakes in the Morrison formation west of Denver in 1850.             

1891 drawing of stegosaurus skeleton by Othniel Charles Marsh. U.S. Geological Survey, 16th Annual Report. 

Although researchers originally thought the plates (fins) on the back lay flat like the scutes on a turtle, by 1891 Othniel Charles Marsh had published his drawing of a stegosaurus with the plates vertical. So, by 1891 we already knew the proper conformation of the stegosaurus' plates. 

I do not know where you got your date of 2019 for when the first fossil of a stegosaurus was discovered, but I submit that you have been misled. I refer you to Wikipedia for a detailed history of the knowledge of Stegosaurus skeletons, and thank you for your comment.