Macario Solis, an amateur archaeologist in Washington state, has identified pieces which appear humanly worked and incorporate imagery of various types. He has independently described the same type of "two headed" sculpture form described by Pietro Gaietto of Italy as a motif dating into the very Low Palaeolithic. Macario may be identifying a "male and female" in the Janus-like opposing faces, or as Gaeitto describes, two types of hominins which may have coexisted.
Macario writes, "I call this one the "gorilla-man." This looks like an effigy with two faces, one on each end. The face on the left seems to look more masculine, and the face on the right could have been a female.
(above) 1982 illustration Copyright Pietro Gaietto, Italy. He describes a type of Homo erectus with a wide jaw which he detects in the rock art. The face on the left side of Mr. Solis' sculpture somewhat resembles this, or even a Paranthropus boisei.
Gaietto illustrates how these two-headed human sculptures are oriented
Gaietto's web site includes this information: "Sculptures of lower and middle Paleolithic are eight types:
1) human head
2) animal head
3) human head two-faced (bold added here for emphasis)
4) animal head two-faced
5) human head joined for the neck at the head of animal
6) human head mixed to animal head
7) naked woman (Venus)
8) head of animal with human body.
The oldest type of sculpture is the human two-faced head, with absolute dating of three million years; it was produced in southern Africa by a kind of Australopithecus, a hominid preceding man.
It is important to consider that the human two-faced head is not imitation of nature, as it did not exist, but is an invention of the spiritual culture of humanity. All these eight types of sculptures appear in Lower Paleolithic and are all linked to the cult, that is to religion." - Pietro Gaeitto, Italy, Museum of the origins of man.
Link to Pietro Gaietto's Museum of the origins of man
Illustrations (c) Copyright 1982-2011 Pietro Gaietto, Museum of the origins of man (Italy), All rights reserved.
-kbj
Ken, I found the brown stone in a driveway on my property. Something called my attention to it every time I passed. If you look at the upper right hand corner, you can see another image of a man with long hair. The tip of the man's hair makes up the baby's nose. There is another image on the tope section of the rock that is a little difficult to see. I would like to know if you can see it. My wife and son didn't see it until after some time.
ReplyDeleteI see the baby's nose but where it comes from is not clear. I can't see anything at the top section. The photos are small and low resolution so it is hard for me to comment without having seen it. A lone stone in a driveway is not a good context for rock art, even though it looked out of place. Finding others in the immediate locale would support the possibility. It looked to me like a two faced head as if joined at the nape of the neck and facing away from each other.
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