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Bird-form and
Bird-Human-Form Sandstone Artifacts in
Australia
| These were collected
by the author in New South Wales in April 2006, in an area known to have
been inhabited since the Paleolithic. They were all
surface finds, many of them from dirt roads graded through the
wilderness. Improbable as it may seem, the similarities of the
images and their incorporated motifs to those at the Day's Knob site in Ohio are unmistakable. This seems to suggest
the possi- bility of a shared symbology of very ancient and primal
origin, propagated over a long period of time across most of the planet. Given
Australia's geographical isolation from the rest of the world,
these finds were not really expected - but here they are. |
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| Standing quasi-anthropomorphic
figure looking skyward, with three (or more) figures emerging successively
from its belly (close-up below). |
|
Two photos
above: The figure from additional perspectives. |
| The seemingly universal theme
(badly weathered) of a face emerging from the mouth of a
crested
zoomorphic figure. |
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Below:
Bird and bird-human figures. It
is interesting that bird imagery is widespread also in
Australian Aboriginal cave art. |
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| Length 6 cm (2.4").
The features are weathered, but this bird figure exhibits the
motif very common in the Day's Knob material, a quasi-human face
emerg- ing from the mouth of the bird. Below, at the top
of the rear edge of the stone, the also very common frontal
figure of a bird-human sending forth another creature from its
mouth (image width 1 cm (0.4"). |
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A classic bifrontal
("janiform") figure - a face at each end. |
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| Four views of the same
artifact. Note the carved grooves on two sides, directly
opposite each other. |
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Another
bifrontal image - animal (or bird-human) left, bird right. |
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| Shaman-like human face carved
on a boulder, with a bird-like figure over the head.
(This was left in situ, obviously.) |
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