The Marked Rock has been studied by many and while some of the symbols clearly resemble samples of ancient scripts from different lands, no one can say for certain exactly what they mean.
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The boulder was actually brought to his present resting place in a city park along the banks of Plum Creek in the city of Manchester, Kentucky. Known from early pioneer days at its original site the rock was part of a rock shelter along the road side. It was a well known land mark until its unfortunate fall in a rock slide a number of years ago. A local citizen interested in preserving the amazing bit of prehistory enlisted help of a lot of folks and brought the massive stone to its present location.
What do the markings represent? No one has ever figured that out for sure other than the speculation. Whether they truly represent ancient alphabets or the idle doodling natives, the answer will probably never been known. The rock is a wonder to see and certainly worth stopping by and seeing.
A shelter and fence stand today protecting the Red Bird Petroglyph from the elements as well as vandals wishing to add their own graffiti to the rock.
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So what do you think these strange markings mean? We'd love to hear your thoughts and theories on the strange rock located in Manchester, Ky. Leave your comments in the space below.
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Ed Henson
Do you know who translated this? I was trying to compare to ancient egyptian hieroglyphics or ancient arabic and nothing matches up. It kind of looks more like they were tracking the stars and moon for directions.
ReplyDeleteNo, I do not unfortunately. I went back and reviewed the markers but no credit is given to who interpreted the markings. It seems to me that your theory is just as valid as the claims made about ancient writings. More and more is being discovered about ancient carvings. In fact, this up coming weekend (April 4-5,2014) a conference event open to the public concerning rock carvings is being held at Natural Bridge State Resort Park at Slade, Kentucky. It is called the 2014 Eastern States Rock Art Research Conference. My guess is there will be folks there that have ideas on the Red Bird Rock.
ReplyDeleteWho knows, some day there may be a “Rosetta Stone” that falls out of some rock slide or cave, and all will be revealed! It has happened before! That would be so marvelous!
ReplyDeleteThat is entirely possible. There will always be future discoveries and maybe this will be one of those discoveries.
ReplyDeleteFrom an article titled 'New Discoveries Related to Red Bird Petroglyph," by Susie lambert, (local newspaper in Kentucky):
ReplyDeleteThe 8 different "Old World" alphabets carved on the stone were extinct by the time Christopher Columbus arrived in the "New World" in 1492. The alphabets are first century Greek and Hebrew, Old Libyan, Old Arabic and Iberian-Punic (which probably dates from the 9th century B.C.) as well as Ogham, Germanic Runes and Tiffinag-Numidian.
Now why would so many diverse ancient peoples stop at this point and carve on the stone? This stone is located on an Indian path known as the Warrior's Trail. It's a good place to set up camp and rest. The trail starts around the Great Lakes in Michigan and goes down to Portsmouth, Ohio where it crosses the Ohio River. It then goes up Licking River and crosses over to the Kentucky River Watershed. It continues on to Oneida where it goes upstream to the headwaters of the Red Bird River and on into Bell County, Kentucky, then across the Cumberland Gap to the Tennessee River Valley. It continues to head south to the Gulf of Mexico. In ancient times, people coming into North America over the Bering Straight used this trail to go from north to south and vice versa. Other peoples, already in North America, picked up the trail at different points along the way.
The Petroglyph stone fell from a cliff near the Red Bird River and landed approximately 2,000 yards from a recently discovered, narrow cave. There is carving inside the cave in Old Arabic or South Semetic. The cave entrance is also of stone where Ogham is carved. There is a stone outside the cave where carvings in Ogham, an early Celtic alphabet, and Old Arabic or South Semetic are also found. These carvings are just like some of those found on the Petroglyph stone that fell. Another fascinating feature is that during the winter solstice, the sun shines directly into the cave somewhat like a gun barrel!
About 20 miles upstream from the cave, in a tributary of the Red Bird River, resides another newly discovered phenomenon. There are 2 round, flat stones - one is up on end (not pictured) and the other one is in the brook. The stones are approximately 5 1/2 feet in diameter and 12 to 15 inches thick. While the concentric lines in the stones are thought to be a natural phenomenon, it appears that some of the lines have been deepeded by hand to create Ogham letters.
No matter how new or ancient a civilization, no matter how diverse the people or their beliefs, we all want to leave our mark to tell future generations, "We lived, we were here."
I can read this and point you in the right direction
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