Rock Markings

Not much to comment on here, but these rockmarkings are interesting. Both examples are near the "turtle formation."


Select the above picture, the enlarged version has some very clear "dots" on it. Is there a way this would happen naturally? I don't know.


There's little doubt this one is man made, though. But made by whom? And why?


If it's of any relevance,nearby was this arrangement of boulders, similar to others I've seen around here:

promised update,at last

Forgive the delay, life has kept me busy, and far from blogging. Here's some more photos from the hike that rewarded me with the previous post.

First, more of the turtle.





This large rock forms the turtle's "shell", if you pan out a bit....


Nearby I found a nicely propped rock. It had clearly been broken out of another boulder, and then dragged up, and over its source-rock, to make a niche.

Mechanically, an upright rock, with the end falling off doesn't work....as the roof rock wouldn't then be resting on the base rock. And the angle of the local bedrock is wrong for the boulder to have been broken in the other direction...



And,right at the crest of this hill, several shattered piles of small stones (or one,very large, shattered pile).

Dream of the BlueTurtles

That does appear to be an "eyehole" bored into this boulder, behind the open "mouth".



I'll have more to say about this in a day or so.

Shaped Boulder/solstice/platform site

Hiking upstream along the flood of Wissahickon valley, starting from near the Valley Green Inn, I happened along the following outcrop on the Chestnut Hill side of the stream.

Intrigued, I followed a dry streambed up the valley wall, and found myself face to face with a fellow of truly ancient mien.




I hope I'm not the only one who sees the face in that rock. Maybe I've been looking at these things too long. I worked my way past the "face" and to the hills local maximum, and noted the following, almost "megalithic" arrangement of boulders.


The heavily slanted boulder in the right side background is part of the "face" formation above.
Today, an hour or so before the sun fell below the horizon, we're treated to the following sight:



That's a very interesting notch between the two foreground boulders, isn't it?


In between these (arranged?) boulders is a small "courtyard. It has the appearance of a "pavement" of sorts, with several arranged rocks acting as "flagstones".

some contemporary piles

The society for "putting things on top of other things" still has many members...



This conical pile is a modern donation pile. It gets bigger every time I see it.

And then there's this:



I'm amazed this one has lasted since the summertime.

Rock Shelter(s) by the Wissahickon

There are a few, really amazing rock shelters and shelter-like formations along the Wissahickon.
The upthrust of a long ago weathered-away mountain chain has left us with some inspiring crags, folds and overhangs made of the local gutrock.

As far as I know, there has been no serious archaeology done here, in spite of the fact that local lingo has given these shelters names like "Indian Cave", "Council Rock" and such like...




and another...

Rock wall seen from bottom of "bowl"

Here's a section of the wall from yesterday's post.
You can see it tracing the edge of the ridge defining the northern boundary of the bowl.

A close up shot of a portion of the rock wall, here consisting of long, flat boulders, stacked end-to-end. Note the gap between the shelf on the middle boulder and its neighbor.