BS: Cupmarks

Subject: BS: Cupmarks
From: josepp
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 03:26 PM

Cup marks and ring marks are a very interesting part of the study of Neolithic cultures. Cup marks are indentations in rock generally not more than a few inches across and varying depths. Ring marks are circles that sometimes accompany the cup marks. Often the rings are concentric. They are very definitely artificial. There is debate concerning whether the cup marks are "pecked" into the rock surface or drilled. Since cup marks are not particularly hard to make, we won't dwell on this point. What is most remarkable about cup and ring marks are the sheer numbers of them because they are found all over the world—probably in the millions. They seem to be in greatest abundance in Europe but are found all over Mexico, South America, China, Korea, Australia, Iran, Central Asia. The oldest cupmarks are found in India.

But what do the marks represent, how were they used? This is the subject of much speculation. Some believe they mark magnetic ley lines of the earth and believe the ancient peoples derived some sort of power from these lines. The proponents of this view are a little short on specifics. What sort of power was derived from these ley lines and how did the cup and ring marks help them to derive it?

A more sensible explanation of the marks is that they are astronomical. The cup marks represent stars, perhaps planets, sun and moon as well. The ring marks perhaps represent their circular trek through the heavens.

The other puzzler is how did these disparate cultures all decide to start making cupmarks in rock? the ones in Korea, for example, look similar to ones found in the U.K. but could the same peoples have made them? It doesn't seem likely but then what do we really know about our past?

From Azerbaijan

From Australia

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: josepp
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 03:37 PM

This website believes cupmarks to be astronomical

Below, the moon or sun and its orbit might be depicted. The ladder-like image may be the Milky Way which has a ladder-like appearance

From Denmark

Milky Way

Carving of Milky Way as Ladder with the axis mundi

Compare to this

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: josepp
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 03:41 PM

From Azerbaijan

Australia

Korea

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Amos
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 04:33 PM

Well, things haven't changed that much. In homo sapiens' current manifestation, similar cupmarks are found in many major appliances--they protrude unexpectedly from our Babbage machines, and sit waiting for someone to put something in them in the back of our transport wagons and our leisure seating ledges (baar-kaah-lounzjhrrs). They have been seen appearing in the mystic ritual devices used for worshipping the god TheeVhee and his half-deity companion Bloo Rayee, and their hero-icon offspring Deevie Dee.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: gnu
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 04:47 PM

Or they could be pockets of silicon that washed away in the rain. Of course, if they are "articicial" and were "pecked" or "drilled" into the rock surface, that would lead us to the question of who and why?

Cerrtainly, these are questions to ponder over and muse about. Indeed, why would any ancient spend time and effort at such an endeavour? To what purpose? And, to find that these are scattered over the vast geologic expanse as is the earth would be truly puzzling.

Or, they could be eroded sand as postulated above, which would lead to another question... josepp... what the fuck kinda drugs are you on?

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 04:47 PM

Cup marks.
























I find a flat sponge and some washing up liquid gets them off most surfaces.

Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: s&r
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 05:14 PM

I am intrigued by these obviously extra terrestrial phenomena

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Amos
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 06:18 PM

The images in your links do not look at all as though manmade to me. They look like the sites of eroded deposits --softer material brought up in a matrix which then washes out sooner than the surrounding rock.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 07:31 PM

I'm with you Amos. Seen lots in desert sandstone.

On the other hand, Stu, I suspect that yours are manmade. :-)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 08:25 PM

I thought cupmarks were the indentations left in a goalie's crotch area after the game's over and he takes his protective equipment off.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Smokey.
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 08:26 PM

Quite obviously the work of extraterrestrial beings.

Like this.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 10:27 PM

GtD

We had a thread about removing cup marks a while ago, but I can't seem to find it now.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 10:34 PM

Well, the ones in rock mostly seem to be holes, or depictions of holes...

That leads one to conjecture, based on The Law of Fives, that the poster may be obsessed with holes.

Now it has been assumed so far that the poster is male, so now we have to decide whether he is obsessed with male holes of female holes, or just his own arse hole...

... or is it just too much contemplation of his own navel - you know they could look like that...

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 10:47 PM

s&r

how about this one?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2BDWCnvohyw/Snmx6bP6MxI/AAAAAAAAAJs/5OpRMwagz5w/s400/elvis-crop-circle.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: josepp
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 11:26 PM

Cup marks are manmade:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_and_ring_mark

http://www.window2baku.com/eng/Ancient/9cupmarks.htm

http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/003233.html

http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai111_folder/111_articles/111_cart_ruts.html

http://www.pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/11/2010/standing-stone-cup-marks-may-represent-star-constellations

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 12:44 AM

So what has this got to do with The Music of The Spheres and Hamlet?

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: s&r
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 05:28 AM

Robin = a true image from beyond

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: s&r
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 05:32 AM

and this...

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 06:17 AM

s&r - another example of The Law of Fives - you can only see what you are preconditioned to see.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 06:28 AM

another example - LG Detects 16 More Faces!

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: josepp
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 06:40 AM

AMAZING!!!
Foolestroupe looks like Jesus

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 07:26 AM

Stop gazing in a mirror, you Narcissist!

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 08:07 AM

Why do we look at ancient artifacts and assume there's one reason they were made? We don't look at a museum full of paintings and assume there's one reason they were painted. We're intelligent enough to know that each artist paints for his own reasons. Why can't we afford that same recognition of artistic individuality to ancient artists?

Why did primitive men use little rocks to peck holes into bigger rocks? There are probably as many answers as there were people doing the pecking. Some undoubtedly did it as a way to record observations about their surroundings*. Some may have done it for spiritual or magical reasons. Others may have done it from sheer boredom or simply because everybody else in the 'hood was doing it. They may have even had races to see who could peck the most holes in an afternoon. Whatever possible motive you can dream up, there was probably some person or group of people who did it for that reason.


*And the night sky was a HUGE part of primitive man's surroundings. We tend to marvel at ancient people's knowledge of things astronomical. Well, you'd know a lot about the night sky too if it were ALL you had to look at after the sun went down.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 08:23 AM

One reason I have heard was that powder from the ground rock near an honored one's tomb, was a powerful magic.


But if that pecking and grinding rock involved any real 'work', then trust me, women did it!

Which also explains the 'pretty patterns'!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 10:32 AM

Josep, I agree that your 12 Dec. 11:26 Wikipedia post shows some obviously human-made marks. I (and probably Amos, too) was responding to the Azerbaijan and Australian pics; some of the other links were broken. But, Bee-dubya-ell's point is a good one.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 11:48 AM

I agree with Desert Dancer about the difference between the Wikipedia pics and the two in the opening post. I've seen naturally eroded rocks that look a lot like the Azerbaijan and Australian pics. Perhaps if they were seen in their natural context, the human manipulation might be more obvious. If there are fifty boulders in a field, all composed of the same minerals, and only a few of them are full of holes, then it's pretty obvious the holes are man-made.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 12:01 PM

They didn't have pencils. They were doodling while they were waiting the bus, most likely.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: josepp
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 12:30 PM

You have to bear in mind these marks are very, very old and a lot of them bear signs of erosion which, from photos, makes them appear to be natural but they are not.

As to what they are for, no one really knows. I suspect it has something to do with things celestial but since they come in different formats and configurations they probably had several different purposes.

And I'm not surprised at all that ancient peoples knew a lot about the heavens, what is surprising is the tremendous amount of work it took to contruct huge stone observatories, many of which still stand today and, excepting a small amount of drift, still function. And we know next to nothing about how they did it or who the hell they even were.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 12:35 PM

When you're not punching a time clock you've got LOTS of time.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 09:20 PM

Human Anatomy is relatively consistent - apart from things like dwarfism and other 'anatomical irregularities' - in the ratio of various parts of the body to each other.

Did you know that if any human (and they mostly male in previous times doing this!) who holds their arm straight out in front and closes one eye, will subtend precisely repeatable angles of arc measured in degrees by holding up a thumb or palm of hand and sighting both sides of this? There are thus ~ 360 degrees of arc - 360 thumbs - in a circle. It is suspected that this method was used to transcribe sky maps on to the walls of caves in France buried deep inside mountains. Hence the ancient allegedly magic/occult number 360!

This is not supposed to be where the phrase 'rule of thumb' arises...


I'm not just making this up you know ... :-P

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: josepp
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 09:22 PM

////When you're not punching a time clock you've got LOTS of time.////

Actually, you have the summer to catch and gather food and it has to be enough to get you through winter. It was a rough life. People didn't live to their 80s. Someone in his 60s was exceedingly ancient. When you think about the hardships they faced, it makes what they accomplished all the more impressive and all the more inexplicable.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 09:29 PM

Btw, all that stuff about the thumb and 360 degrees, yet again demonstrates the Law of Fives - reality driven by perception - and why misguided, but perhaps well meaning, people generate huge amounts of waffle when they try to see the 'magical/occult significance' of things that occur by coincidence.

My mum's dad knew this 'peasant trick' of measurement as well as others I have forgotten, handed down thru his family. He was fairly well self educated, but had no University, or even High School Education: generally in those days, if you stayed til 5th grade you were considered fairly highly educated.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 09:31 PM

"People didn't live to their 80s"

Methuselah did - unless someone was telling Furphies.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 09:36 PM

All through the southwest there are sites where similar holes have been ground into rocks, by the hands of women using a mortar stone to grind acorns or other things into flour.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: josepp
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 09:57 PM

And some look like they were used to channel rainwater for some purpose. Fool may be onto something that at least some types of cup marks were made by women.

Then again, we have no idea what role women played in these ancient societies because we know virtually nothing about these societies.

You read things that make you wonder. I remember reading once about skeletons found in Indochina 6 to 7 feet tall who inhabited the region before the current folk. Who were they? Who were the red-haired Caucasian mummies found in China who wore double-peaked hats? Nothing like them in Europe. Who were they? Where did they come from and why did they settle where they did? Or were they always there?

The Sino-Japanese kanji (ideogram) for "east" is "higashi" or "to" (pronounced something like our "toe"). It looks like this:

Higashi

It is the same "to" used in "Tokyo" for example. It represents the sun rising behind a tree. Again, this indicates an ancient people marking the sunrise with a tree or rock or other auspicious object which would indicate how ancient some of the kanji ideograms must be. Who actually developed the original hieroglyphs that became the kanji system and when?

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: josepp
Date: 13 Dec 10 - 10:18 PM

Then there's the idea that the taichi or yin-yang symbol may have orignally been a sundial:

Yin-Yang Sundial

The cool thing about this sundial is that it will actually tell you the tilt of the earth.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 02:36 AM

Which could prove that the ignorant corrupt knowledge into Mysticism...

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 08:05 AM

I once noticed some on a rock on a small headland at the south side of the harbour at Coverack on the Lizard, quite near to the coastal path. We had just looked for a nice place to sit for a rest. After pondering over them for a while I found it hard to think of a natural mechanism that could have formed them in what appeared to be granite.

Perhaps I should have reported them to some archeological group?

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 08:35 AM

I used to spend a lot of time roaming the moors of Northumbria in search of Cup & Ring marks which, like other manifestations of prehiostoric ulture, have attracted all manner of hoo-hah over the years. Who knows what they are? Who cares? For me it was always enough to savour the human presence of our Beaker Folk Ancestors who, in sharing our self-same abstract purpose, sent something vivid enough across the centuries. Closer analysis of the vocabularies does reveal a regional variation - the Northumbrian C&RMs are quite distinct from nieghbouring Yorkshire & Scottish ones - though I too conclude their function was astronomical given the landscapes inhabited by these diminutive forest-dwellers of circa 2000-1600BCE. 4000 years on I think it's folly to attempt further speulation or even put our religious conceits onto a culture that were too busy getting on with the business of living to get hung up on indulgent mysticism They were very hard times - life was short, brutish & prpobably very sweet as well - so just looking for patterns in the chaos of it all, and where there were none, they made them, which accounts as much for the simplest cup marks to the henges & sarsens of Avebury, and, ultimately, I sense similar impulses prevail in the construction of everything from Crop Circles to high-way roundabouts which I find equally wondrous.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: josepp
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 08:05 PM

But the question that still needs answering is how these marks appear all over the earth. Did separate cultures independently hit on the idea or was there far more communication than science is prepared to admit?

One thing that intrigues me is that here in Upper Michigan, we have ancient copper mines by the thousands. We have no clue who was mining the copper or what they did with it. Approximately 1.5 billion pounds of copper was mined but where did it all go? The only answer is that it was sold or bartered off--but to whom? Some archaeologists insist that Lake Superior copper is found throughout South America, Europe and the Middle East.

The bizarre thing is, though, that whoever was mining left nothing behind of any note that allows us to identify who they were. There are no living quarters, no rock drawings or petroglyphs, no burial mounds or tombs. No pottery or implements other than the tools they mined with--mauls--and a few arrowheads made from the copper they mined.

Even stranger, whatever happened to them. They laid down their mauls and walked off the face of the earth one day. We're even sure when this happened except it was well over 10 centuries before the common era and maybe over 50 centuries. There are no bones, no skulls, no bits of clothing--nothing. Where did they come from, where did they go and where did they do and what did they do with all that copper?

Michigan's mysterious history

Michigan once had a tremendous number of Indian mounds. In fact, the road my office is located on is called Mound Road which is named for the mounds that were once clumped around its length. Archaeologists are certain that the mound-builders, whoever they were, were not the copper miners. And make no mistake, these mounds are themselves very mysterious.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Dec 10 - 06:29 PM

Loads of these cup and ring marks in the West of Scotland, I've seen a few and they are definitely artificial....as I am a stonemason, I could easily recognise natural erosion in the types of stone we have here...very ancient igneous micas and granites

Many are found near ancient burial sites perhaps 5/6 thousand years old.
Very little is known of the folks who made these marks and erected the hundreds of standing stones.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: josepp
Date: 15 Dec 10 - 06:57 PM

Yes, the U.K. ancients really had a thing for megaliths and menhirs. They were obviously sophisticated people to have carved and erected so many. The trouble is, if they were simple hunters and gatherers, would they have needed to do this? I could understand that they might be expert trackers and know how to use the stars, moon and sun but they clearly had uses for the celestial bodies that we're unaware of.

I get the same feeling with the so-called Anasazi sun dagger:

http://www.meredith.edu/nativeam/sun_dag2.jpg

Would hunter-gatherers or simple farmers have needed something this sophisticated? How did they even build the damned thing?? Three big slabs stacked next to each other to let in little slivers of light to travel across a carved spiral to mark the solstices and the equinoxes. Even more amazing, though, is that it marked the major and minor lunar standstills and would tell you how far you were from the last one and how close to the next by counting the grooves in the spiral where a shadow fell on it. It also marked the true full moon which only occurs every 19 years when the the lunar face is most exposed to the sun--other full moons are somewhat less than that. It is the only ancient observatory in the New World that tracks both sun and moon equally well. Why would they need to know these things and how did they get the idea to erect these slabs to get that information?? And then how did they erect and position these slabs which are on top of a tall butte.

Fajada Butte

These had to be sophisticated people with a great deal of natural knowledge.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 04:23 AM

I think that is the answer J, these people had a great understanding of nature, something which modern man has lost.
"primitive" man had the time to study and copy nature, their minds uncluttered by modern cares and obsessions.

I dont think these great momuments were observatories as we understand them, but simply primitive mans attempts to transcribe the great unfathonable movements of nature...perhaps even an attempt to harness the natural cycle.

Subject: RE: BS: Cupmarks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 06:43 AM

... and predict 'useful' things like when it was gonna get colder, when the migrating animals were due to pass, etc. And the guy who cold do that, was 'powerful' ...