Thanks for the interest guys.... I haven't been back this year at all yet. Jordan and I made a great sifter and I'm just waiting for him to get the time off, show up and we'll get it back there. But it won't be easy.
Jason.... When I go back I'll try that. I AM NOT A CAMERA EXPERT/GUY at all. I'll take a "million" pics at different angles w/flashlight, download and see if we can see anything else. As far as the "modern graffiti to the left" I'm not convinced that's what it is. Who signs initials in such a fashion? Check out ruin writings...? And what's this symbol mean...? I've tried and tried to find a likeness and can't.
Sorry I think I worded it wrong. Not 'modern' as in contemporary to the last few decades. Just meant 'modern' as in using modern writing. Letters from our alphabet. Could be from anytime in the last few centuries - anytime since Europeans have been in Tennessee.
I was just guessing that there are two parts - one older, pictorial image made by Native Americans 800 years or so ago (estimate articles give for the age of other mud glyphs in caves in Tennessee) - and one which I'm guessing are initials or something else written in our alphabet, from the last 3 centuries or so. I guess those could be images and not letters, but they sure look like letters.
Another possibility is that they are letters, but the same person/people who made them did all of it. Which certainly wouldn't be Mississippian era Indians, since they couldn't have known our alphabet. So it could be all one piece of work, done by an early settler or later explorer.
So I see a few possibilities:
1. All of it was done by Natives around the time similar mud glyphs in the area were made.
2. The left side was done by Natives, then some settler(s) who wasn't Native added the letters later. (like I said, this is my guess)
3. All of it was done by settlers, and isn't Native American at all.
4. It's natural (I think this is easy to rule out, those don't look natural at all).
The handwriting, if that's what it is, actually 'feels' old to me. Especially the L. But I could easily see someone writing their initials like that. People did it to some of the other glyphs in the links I posted, though the handwriting is more scratchy in most (but they look like harder mud).
But that's just my guess. Do you not think the carvings to the right are letters? They sure look like it in the images, but you've seen them in person and I haven't - which is a much better test!
That and if you fill in the gaps or you can make the bottom picture say HUNGRY!
