One of my unprocessed images from a trip long ago. This from the arches area, unsure if this is naturally carved. Perhaps @Douglas Sherman has an idea what this is.
C&C Welcome
C&C Welcome
It was a largish size shot at around 30mm to fill a full frame sensor from about 6-8ft away.Sure looks man carved. How large is it? Is this just something you found?
Thanks Alan. That's what I thought and considered this natural but then there are also some man made lines - in the middle of the image, I see letters H and A for example.Very curious indeed. If it's artwork it doesn't match anything I am familiar with in that area and looks too well eroded to be anything modern. Possibly random lines from sharpening sticks?
Thanks Doug. Interesting thoughts. We can all speculate.The only thing that I can lend to this discussion is that this is not formed by natural processes. It has to have a human origin but I have no clue what it is. Alan might be on to something. At first I thought it might be due to the development of ice crystals in the sand in very shallow water but the patterns don't look right. Any way it is a very interesting artifact, Jameel.
I am a little fuzzy about the location - it was almost a decade ago. Going by the time stamp of images in sequence to this one, it has to be close to the double arch (3 mins time difference between this and the double arch image). It was in the open and stuck to surrounding rock i.e. not moveable.How interesting Jameel. I didn’t catch, was this out in the open? A rock slab on the ground? Any context to where you found this?
Monika and Alan seem to have a viable explanation. I found this article after a bit of research. Congratulations you two. The author of the article seems a bit skeptical but it seems to me that he forgets that the grooves would get wider as sharpening continues thus necessitating other sharpening grooves.It looks to me like a sharpening stone.
When sharpening a knife on a flat stone, one holds the blade at different angles: 1st around 30 degrees then, for the cutting edge, around 15 degrees which could account for the more obtuse angle seen on one side of some of the grooves. I am, of course, assuming that modern people just rediscovered what ancient people had done millennia ago.Monika and Alan seem to have a viable explanation. I found this article after a bit of research. Congratulations you two. The author of the article seems a bit skeptical but it seems to me that he forgets that the grooves would get wider as sharpening continues thus necessitating other sharpening grooves.
https://jeffpeachey.com/2016/06/21/neolithic-knife-sharpening/
Actually we never really forgot. H. Saps (and earlier) have been keeping things sharp ever since we figured out how cool it was to work with sharp toolsWhen sharpening a knife on a flat stone, one holds the blade at different angles: 1st around 30 degrees then, for the cutting edge, around 15 degrees which could account for the more obtuse angle seen on one side of some of the grooves. I am, of course, assuming that modern people just rediscovered what ancient people had done millennia ago.