Appears to be the same thought process that sees animal and other figures in the stars.
Posted on 08/20/2015 7:48:55 AM PDT by BenLurkin
The mystery surrounding the ancient rock paintings of Utah's Black Dragon Canyon has finally been solved. For decades, researchers and creationists have debated whether the vibrant red pictographs are images of humans and animals, or rather, depictions of a large winged monster, possibly a pterosaur.
Now, using cutting-edge technology, researchers suggest the red paintings show five separate images, including a tall bug-eyed person, a smaller person, a sheep, a dog and a serpentlike figure.
"It is not a single figure. It is not a pterodactyl," said co-lead researcher Paul Bahn, a freelance archaeologist. "It's a beautiful set of images."
The rock paintings belong to the agrarian Fremont culture (circa A.D. 1 to 1100). Other Fremont rock paintings — known as Barrier Canyon style — show abstract humanlike figures with elongated bodies and round heads, the researchers wrote in the study. These long figures are usually accompanied by tiny "attendants," including people, birds and four-legged creatures, such as hoofed animals, canines, felines, badgers and bears.
Amateurs discovered the painting in 1928, and soon after talk of the "winged monster" arose. In 1947, a man named John Simonson traced over the paintings with chalk and said the end result looked like "a weird bird."
Chalking rock art was a common practice in earlier years — ancient rock art is usually faint, and chalk can help make it visible — but today it's illegal, Bahn said.
"It's one of the worst things you can do, because it damages the art, it imposes what you think you can see on it, it messes up the chemistry of the rock, probably, and it just doesn't disappear,"
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Good Lord I had my laugh for this morning at the various interpretations! Thanks!
But here’s my guess, in all seriousness;
Tall figure with the enlongated body is very common in native American rock art all thru the continent and is probably the shaman. Same-same in Canada, south America.
goatish creatures on left are male and female cervids of some kind, probably bighorn sheep.
Big-headed critter biting shaman’s butt is probably the Underwater Monster, also common in myth throughout North America, in Algonkian languages called Misshepishou, much feared. Okay it’s desert country but the creature seems to have some kind of underwater coursing paths or activities. Very fearsome. Half snake, half feline of some kind.
Supplicating figure could be playing piano for all I know. No guesses on this one.
Shaman figure — tail -— aside from relieving himself from prehistoric burritos, looks like his lower half is hoofed animal. shaman shape-changer.
And so that’s my contribution to FR for the day.
Appears to be the same thought process that sees animal and other figures in the stars.
I did always think that Scorpius was an easy one though ...
...that is, seeing a single "winged monster" in this collection of individual subjects:
I imagine the original condition of the drawing made it hard to make out at first. Because, obviously, seen here above, there should've been no mistaking this for a single figure of any kind.
Agreed. You'd have to be high on crack not to see a scorpion there.
:)
Interesting. Thanks!
It appears to me that the animal figures on the left are drawn in a pretty realistic style and are identifiable.
The so-called supplicating person may be a copy of the tall person in a reverse pose since they are both bending over with arms outstretched.
The thing that bugs me, however, is that the animals are realistic, right down to the stance of the legs, horns, etc while the humanoids are not realistic at all in terms of torso and arm/leg proportions. Not to mention the onion shaped head with holes for eyes and no mouth or nose on the taller figure.
In contrast with the realistic animals, those figures aren’t done very well as representative of humans. One might almost think they look like one of the ‘greys’, eh?
Alien petroglyphs on the EPA desecrated San Juan river
How do I say this politely? Umm... how about... Bzzzt! Wrong!!!
The picture is so obvious I can not comprehend how y’all can’t see it clear.
The item in the tall thing’s hand is, of course, high rise office buildings. Note the windows. The wobbly construction indicates the image pre-dates building codes.
The tall thing is tall, has short fore arms and a tail. Obviously its a proto Godzilla.
The worm thing is actually a giant carnivorous Mothra prior to its change to a moth.
The goats are simply place holders for the time when automobiles are invented as items to be stomp crushed by the Godzilla critter.
The man on fire is, of course, Man on Fire:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328107/
Man of Fire is waiting for whichever of the monsters wins the throw-down so’s he can take care of Last Monster Standing.
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Looks like they have flunked their Rorschach test!
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HA!!
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>> “Appears to be the same thought process that sees animal and other figures in the stars.” <<
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Actually, no!
Those came from the Word of God.
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From the title, I was expecting an article about some rock fan who finally figured out what heavy metal album covers were trying to say, but I guess archaeology is also interesting.
Looks like a fuzzy bigfoot about to be bit on the butt by a snake while the bigfoot thing is chasing antelope that were running away from a wolf. See. easy. nothing to it.
Paleoporn?
Humans playing dressup — its analogous to the wearing of masks in Greek, Roman, and other ancient cult rites.
Dress up? OK, I’ll accept that as an idea for a mask, similar to the Kachina masks, but why are the drawings of the human figures so disproportionate physically when the animals aren’t? It just makes no sense to draw something so different from the normal human physique.
You’d have to posit that the dress up includes using stilts under long robes to give that long torso and thin legs.
Or I suppose it could be different artists, one with skills and one without.
Pharaohs are portrayed as much taller than others in Egyptian art — that doesn’t mean they were literally giants.
Yes, but they are proportionate, not misshapened giants.
Egypt had better artists.
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