lamar
Bronze Member
- Aug 30, 2004
- 1,341
- 46
Re: Basic Spanish signs and symbols you have found
Dear group;
Pretaining to the use of signs as markers or indicators to guide a person to a hidden treasure, I have several questions, all of which I feel are ultimately unanswerable.
First, signs, symbols, markers, indicators and the like can be positively construed as icons. An icon is an image, representation, or or caricature that stands for an object or an idea by representation, either physically or by analogy.
A symbol is a simple single drawing or carving which represents either an obect, an idea or a message.
Symbols have used in a religious context since ancient man. Knowing this, we can research how symbols evolved, were utilized and what they came to represent.
To state that certain icons or symbols were in use by the Jesuits during the colonization of the Americas can be very misguiding at best. Jesuits have never been known to use icons which were ordained as holy symbols by the Holy See and there is a valid reason for this.
By the latter part of the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic church perceived itself to be under threat from Western esotericism, which combined Christian theology with other practices such as astorology and alchemy into a sort of separate *church within a church* concept. The mainstream Roman Catholics branded the Western esoteric beliefs as hereitical to the teachings of the Roman Catholic church and as such, they were ever vigilant towards any individual or group who seemed to be practicing esotericism.
Western esotericism was based on the premise that only a small group of knowledgeable or *enlightened* people knew the docturines and symbology behind the beliefs. This is one of the reasons why the Holy See supported the disbandment of the Templars.
And so, with the threat of erotericism very real and very fresh in the minds of all Roman Catholic organizations, it makes no logical sense why a Roman Catholic religious order such as the Jesuits would resort to symbology which could have very easily been contrued as esoteric in nature.
Also, there has never surfaced a single scrap of historical documentation, nor shred of reputable evidence or fact that the Jesuits or any other Spanish or Portuguese settler had ever used any symbol, other than religious ones, in their daily lives for any purpose. Even the cattle brands were religious in nature and significance, so great was the preceived threat of esotericism. Why therefore, would someone expose oneself to the hazards of being declared a heretic when there were other, safer methods at hand of concealing a message?
Greek, Latin or Coptic acronyms were also very popular during the colonization of the Americas and virtually any hidden message would be revealed only as a simple religous message to the unititiated. This would have been a far safer method of transmitting a hidden message and much less likley to be guessed as to the true meaning of the message.
Why, then were acronyms not used? The simple answer is that acronyms were not used as secret codes simply there there was no secret code to begin with. The symbols which are seen on rock faces were not carved or chiseled by man, rather, they are geo-facts, items which were shaped by Mother Nature.
Also, as a matter of course, whenever a rock has been carved upon by a manmade object, the scar it leaves behinds remains fresh in relation to the surrounding host rock for at least a generation, and many times much longer. Therefore, it would have been quite easy for someone to find the freshly carved symbols and intrepret what their true meanings were.
Carvings in tree trunks would have been even more discernable, owing to the fact that trees are organic and everybody knows that something carved into a tree trunk would no longer be visible after a few decades due to tree growth, fires, harvestation, etc. Therefore how can one positively conclude that a symbol carved into a tree trunk was put there during the Spanish colonization era?
Geo-facts can often look as though they were carved by humans, when they were in fact carved by the natural course of errosion. It's often quite easy to view a surrounding formation and be able to tell from the surrounding structure whether a symbol is manmade or not.
And so, how can one be positive they are looking at an actual manmade symbol instead of a geofact?
First, view the surrounding rock formation. Is the host rock homogenous or layered? If it's layered then then it can be ascertained almost conclusively that the symbol is a geo-fact. in layered rock formations, the lighter materials errode away with time, leaving the more dense materials behind. For example, in well formed old granite geo-facts are almost never seen as the host rock is homogenous and very dense in construction and the superficial elements attacking the rock facings do so at an almost even rate, leaving behind relatively smooth surfaces.
The straight lines which have been gouged out and are plainly visible on layered rock are twin effects of mafic fusion and glacial errosion. As the material formed in the Earths' sub-stratus, lighter material became trapped between denser ones, causing formation banding. Wherever the pressure and/or temperatures varied, you will find discontinuities in the formation, such as peaks, ridges, swirls and waves.
Once the rock surface became exposed to the Earths' surface and the environment, it started being attacked by errosion immediately, and when an Ice Ages approached this process was greatly speeded up. As ice encroached upon the rock structure, it crept ahead at a infismal rate, slowly grinding out the lighter materials, then as the ice slowly receded it again scooped out even more of the lighter float materials, leaving behind deep grooves in the rocks' exposed surfaces.
Another fact which may lead to the conclusion that Spanish colonists did not carve symbols with hidden meanings into rocks or trees is to look at Spanish colonies in other areas. Carved symbols seem to be predominate in Mexico and the southwestern USA and they are nowhere to be found in either Central or South America, both of which had huge silver and gold deposits.
If it were only the colonists in question, then one may assume that perhaps it was only a regional thing and that not all colonists from other parts of world would indulge in symbol carving, however this is not the case here. Because jesuits were supposedly involved, this leads one to conclude that anything a Jesuit group did in one area, another Jesuit group would do in another.
This is because all Jesuits attended one sole Seminary and they all were taught the same tenants and docturines. Therefore, one could positively state that if a froup of Jesuits were hiding gold and silver in other area and marking the caches with hidden symbols, then they would be doing it everywhere.
This of course, did not happen and in fact the only symbology discovered thus far in South America precludes Columbus. That the indigenius peoples carved the symbols is immediately obvious and they can in no way be construed as geo-facts. Even the meanings of some pre-Columbian carvings can be guessed at with some measure of accuracy.
And now, the last question in the chain of evidence. IF the Jesuits did indeed incorporate a secret coded set of symbols and IF they in fact carved these same symbols onto the faces of rocks and tree trunks, and knowing that they left behind no historical records of the meanings of these symbols, how come there are so many experts who can intrepret the meanings of these symbols as easily as they can read a book?
For an example of the difficulty involved in interpretting a set of symbols, let us look to the Egyptian hieroglyphs. For centuries scholars had been trying to decipher the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians, and it wasn't until 1822 that the first few hieroglyphs could be translated with any degreee of certainity, and this was only because of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone which was uncovered in 1798.
Even with the Rosetta Stone in possession, the hierogyphics remained a mystery until 24 years later, and please bear in mind that the Rosetta Stone was written (carved) with the same sentences into not two but THREE different languages of the day, Eygptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian Demotic AND in classical Greek! This should act as a guide as to the incredible difficulties one faces when attempting to translate a thought or idea into a modern meaning. This difficulty would be compounded many times if the symbols in question were in secret code and each symbol had a secret meaning. Therefore how could one even begine to translate the meanings of a code which was written over five hundred years ago?
Your friend;
LAMAR
Dear group;
Pretaining to the use of signs as markers or indicators to guide a person to a hidden treasure, I have several questions, all of which I feel are ultimately unanswerable.
First, signs, symbols, markers, indicators and the like can be positively construed as icons. An icon is an image, representation, or or caricature that stands for an object or an idea by representation, either physically or by analogy.
A symbol is a simple single drawing or carving which represents either an obect, an idea or a message.
Symbols have used in a religious context since ancient man. Knowing this, we can research how symbols evolved, were utilized and what they came to represent.
To state that certain icons or symbols were in use by the Jesuits during the colonization of the Americas can be very misguiding at best. Jesuits have never been known to use icons which were ordained as holy symbols by the Holy See and there is a valid reason for this.
By the latter part of the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic church perceived itself to be under threat from Western esotericism, which combined Christian theology with other practices such as astorology and alchemy into a sort of separate *church within a church* concept. The mainstream Roman Catholics branded the Western esoteric beliefs as hereitical to the teachings of the Roman Catholic church and as such, they were ever vigilant towards any individual or group who seemed to be practicing esotericism.
Western esotericism was based on the premise that only a small group of knowledgeable or *enlightened* people knew the docturines and symbology behind the beliefs. This is one of the reasons why the Holy See supported the disbandment of the Templars.
And so, with the threat of erotericism very real and very fresh in the minds of all Roman Catholic organizations, it makes no logical sense why a Roman Catholic religious order such as the Jesuits would resort to symbology which could have very easily been contrued as esoteric in nature.
Also, there has never surfaced a single scrap of historical documentation, nor shred of reputable evidence or fact that the Jesuits or any other Spanish or Portuguese settler had ever used any symbol, other than religious ones, in their daily lives for any purpose. Even the cattle brands were religious in nature and significance, so great was the preceived threat of esotericism. Why therefore, would someone expose oneself to the hazards of being declared a heretic when there were other, safer methods at hand of concealing a message?
Greek, Latin or Coptic acronyms were also very popular during the colonization of the Americas and virtually any hidden message would be revealed only as a simple religous message to the unititiated. This would have been a far safer method of transmitting a hidden message and much less likley to be guessed as to the true meaning of the message.
Why, then were acronyms not used? The simple answer is that acronyms were not used as secret codes simply there there was no secret code to begin with. The symbols which are seen on rock faces were not carved or chiseled by man, rather, they are geo-facts, items which were shaped by Mother Nature.
Also, as a matter of course, whenever a rock has been carved upon by a manmade object, the scar it leaves behinds remains fresh in relation to the surrounding host rock for at least a generation, and many times much longer. Therefore, it would have been quite easy for someone to find the freshly carved symbols and intrepret what their true meanings were.
Carvings in tree trunks would have been even more discernable, owing to the fact that trees are organic and everybody knows that something carved into a tree trunk would no longer be visible after a few decades due to tree growth, fires, harvestation, etc. Therefore how can one positively conclude that a symbol carved into a tree trunk was put there during the Spanish colonization era?
Geo-facts can often look as though they were carved by humans, when they were in fact carved by the natural course of errosion. It's often quite easy to view a surrounding formation and be able to tell from the surrounding structure whether a symbol is manmade or not.
And so, how can one be positive they are looking at an actual manmade symbol instead of a geofact?
First, view the surrounding rock formation. Is the host rock homogenous or layered? If it's layered then then it can be ascertained almost conclusively that the symbol is a geo-fact. in layered rock formations, the lighter materials errode away with time, leaving the more dense materials behind. For example, in well formed old granite geo-facts are almost never seen as the host rock is homogenous and very dense in construction and the superficial elements attacking the rock facings do so at an almost even rate, leaving behind relatively smooth surfaces.
The straight lines which have been gouged out and are plainly visible on layered rock are twin effects of mafic fusion and glacial errosion. As the material formed in the Earths' sub-stratus, lighter material became trapped between denser ones, causing formation banding. Wherever the pressure and/or temperatures varied, you will find discontinuities in the formation, such as peaks, ridges, swirls and waves.
Once the rock surface became exposed to the Earths' surface and the environment, it started being attacked by errosion immediately, and when an Ice Ages approached this process was greatly speeded up. As ice encroached upon the rock structure, it crept ahead at a infismal rate, slowly grinding out the lighter materials, then as the ice slowly receded it again scooped out even more of the lighter float materials, leaving behind deep grooves in the rocks' exposed surfaces.
Another fact which may lead to the conclusion that Spanish colonists did not carve symbols with hidden meanings into rocks or trees is to look at Spanish colonies in other areas. Carved symbols seem to be predominate in Mexico and the southwestern USA and they are nowhere to be found in either Central or South America, both of which had huge silver and gold deposits.
If it were only the colonists in question, then one may assume that perhaps it was only a regional thing and that not all colonists from other parts of world would indulge in symbol carving, however this is not the case here. Because jesuits were supposedly involved, this leads one to conclude that anything a Jesuit group did in one area, another Jesuit group would do in another.
This is because all Jesuits attended one sole Seminary and they all were taught the same tenants and docturines. Therefore, one could positively state that if a froup of Jesuits were hiding gold and silver in other area and marking the caches with hidden symbols, then they would be doing it everywhere.
This of course, did not happen and in fact the only symbology discovered thus far in South America precludes Columbus. That the indigenius peoples carved the symbols is immediately obvious and they can in no way be construed as geo-facts. Even the meanings of some pre-Columbian carvings can be guessed at with some measure of accuracy.
And now, the last question in the chain of evidence. IF the Jesuits did indeed incorporate a secret coded set of symbols and IF they in fact carved these same symbols onto the faces of rocks and tree trunks, and knowing that they left behind no historical records of the meanings of these symbols, how come there are so many experts who can intrepret the meanings of these symbols as easily as they can read a book?
For an example of the difficulty involved in interpretting a set of symbols, let us look to the Egyptian hieroglyphs. For centuries scholars had been trying to decipher the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians, and it wasn't until 1822 that the first few hieroglyphs could be translated with any degreee of certainity, and this was only because of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone which was uncovered in 1798.
Even with the Rosetta Stone in possession, the hierogyphics remained a mystery until 24 years later, and please bear in mind that the Rosetta Stone was written (carved) with the same sentences into not two but THREE different languages of the day, Eygptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian Demotic AND in classical Greek! This should act as a guide as to the incredible difficulties one faces when attempting to translate a thought or idea into a modern meaning. This difficulty would be compounded many times if the symbols in question were in secret code and each symbol had a secret meaning. Therefore how could one even begine to translate the meanings of a code which was written over five hundred years ago?
Your friend;
LAMAR
From the photo, it looks as if the lighter colored material is a variety of material that was at one point in time, mud. After it filled the vent, it in turn soldified into rock. 
Go to original sources, or translations of original sources.
