Very, very old stone art. A gallery of over 2000 photos.

I stumbled upon an interesting website displaying very old pieces of stones. The website contains over 2000 photos and many studies in the field of ancient stone-art. Unfortunately the page is in German, and I'm a bit rusty at the moment - yes, I'm aware of google translations... but I think this is more of a dig-it-through-yourself kind of thing if you are up for it.

I would have put up some images but they seem to be copyrighted so the link will have to do.

Schafftwissen.de

There are lots of artwork on this site that by first hand seems quite natural looking, but after a while turns into hand made objects. This being said, I think a few of them almost certainly were natural formations.

But those who have a fetish for old stone art, this is your site!

Enjoy!

The miles of German text makes it tedious to even try to find the vital fact: how old are the carvings exactly, if you know?
Nice pictures, though!

Some of it is completely unrecognizable, yet the idea of how long they have been around is a exciting thought.

reply to post by EllaMarina


I will try to read it and come up with some dates. May take a while but I will return illuminated! The only big reference I find is the topic of Stoneage-art.

Originally posted by OnWhiteMars
I stumbled upon an interesting website displaying very old pieces of stones. The website contains over 2000 photos and many studies in the field of ancient stone-art. Unfortunately the page is in German, and I'm a bit rusty at the moment - yes, I'm aware of google translations... but I think this is more of a dig-it-through-yourself kind of thing if you are up for it.

I would have put up some images but they seem to be copyrighted so the link will have to do.

Schafftwissen.de

There are lots of artwork on this site that by first hand seems quite natural looking, but after a while turns into hand made objects. This being said, I think a few of them almost certainly were natural formations.

But those who have a fetish for old stone art, this is your site!

Enjoy!

Well...assuming a very large budget and a global population that was actually in support of the project, the "perfect" solution would be to carve text into immense slabs of granite (large enough that the risk of them cracking or shattering is more or less nil) with the same exact message repeated in every written language on planet earth (including some ancient languages as well like heiroglyphics, sanskrit, linear a, linear b, latin, etc) and then ALSO taking that message and expressing it in a couple of mathematical languages such as universal binary, hexadecimal, octal, etc. and then making sure that there was a storehouse of those identical granite tablets located every one-hundred miles or so in order to make it exceptionally likely that they were uncovered. Thus, the record would help future civilizations decipher not only the message itself...but all other artifacts, texts, or messages they might also find. A global Rosetta stone.

Of course...it's a total pipe dream and it would continue to change throughout time. The message which we wish to leave today might not be the same that we would wish to leave in a hundred, or a thousand years from now.

However...if we are talking about just what is the theoretically the best way to transfer a message throughout the ages...it's pretty tough to beat deeply carved, easily translated, and vastly duplicated text in granite. As far as I recall granite is the most stable type of rock on planet earth and resists weathering like nothing else.

That's my thinking anyways.

reply to post by milominderbinder


I was a bit lost at first hand in your answer but the hang of the end. And I agree on a few of your thoughts. We can not quite compare our testament or legacy with the ancient one, because of the rate of changing things. Our message would in fact change all the time, as the old messages written or carved has been 'state of the art' for many centuries after the carving.

thank you for your interesting post

i find it fascinating to be in touch with stone that lets me connect with earthlings who lived 200'000 yrs or so ago. to see some signs of their life and work that is there for ever. i think the message they left with their carvings is one of joy for creation and life itself. i imagine them experiencing and expressing feelings of love, admiration and gratitude.

some more links in english on stone age art :

Figure Stones in Germany

2myrs of Art in Human Evolution

reply to post by applecore


Thank you for your links! I will have to read through!

Originally posted by OnWhiteMars
reply to post by milominderbinder

 

I was a bit lost at first hand in your answer but the hang of the end. And I agree on a few of your thoughts. We can not quite compare our testament or legacy with the ancient one, because of the rate of changing things. Our message would in fact change all the time, as the old messages written or carved has been 'state of the art' for many centuries after the carving.

Exactly. I think it's a futile endeavor...but if we are just talking about what the best MEDIUM is I'm pretty sure nothing beats granite in terms of longevity.

reply to post by OnWhiteMars


Some of the pics are rather interesting:



But others are just grasping at pareidolia:



Running the site through Google Translate, it appears the site is privately owned and funded, and no actual peer review has occurred, as well as the lack of any official dating. There are suggestions by the author of early Pliocene, but more likely they are just curious oddities that the author has collected.

In other words, cool rock looks like *insert name here*, let me make a website. It's a nice personal collection.

OH MY GOD! DON"T GO THERE! I've been trying to tell them that back in the day people did other things other then writing on cave walls! Heres a good one, have a possible MANAPORT, emailed the guy and all I got was there is only one in this world! HOW?
Shaped like a bear and has images on it. Told it was sediment, still it don't explain the face, clouds, cave etc... I'm starting to think there is something were not to know about our past back then. Would like to put pic's but somehow I can not get them to work here.
Just imagen what is buried and has not been found yet! Or it has and has been hidden from us.

I used to have this potato chip that looked exactly like LBJ.

Maybe aliens made it.

Harte

Rock paradolia, how cute!