where would you go from here

[DevilDog2244]

 

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[littleneckhalfshell]

what am I supposed to be seeing? I see a sad old man on the left and a possible skull just to his right, but that may be my overactive imagination. Are the dark areas paint or part of the rock? What is the size, something in the picture for scale might be helpful.

 

[DevilDog2244]

 

[DevilDog2244]

 

[Curtis]

Hey DD,

What kind of range are you from the objects? Can you reveal the state or area it was taken? Some of the pictures look like they could have some etching on the rocks but I am not sure.

 

[chkn]

Ya, that last one almost looks like petroglyphs. Strange stuff. That top one almost looks like an upside down skull. Try Signs and Symbols!

 

[lastleg]

Rocks are there to chisel out clues to treasure. Say you felt benevolent and wanted to tease your
fellow man with lines and holes and lines so that the passerby would stop and wonder what that
simple rock meant in the scheme of things. Surely the ancient ones put that there to make me
wealthy because that's how they worked. First they found a magnificent gold mine, then they
went looking for other magnificent gold mines but first they found a soft rock wall and scribed a
turtle or toad or perhaps an owl or even a sad old man. Thus they felt justified in taking gold
from the foreigners they were trespassing on. It's that simple.

 

[pyledriver]

Hmm..Lastleg. Bizarre and a complete misrepresentation/misunderstanding of what signs and symbols were all about. Having said that, not every carved rock means treasure-in fact most don't. Trail signs, water signs and the like are much more prevalent if you're talking Spanish. Don't forget the indigenous people, they liked to peck out stuff on rock faces too.

Jump down to the signs and symbols section as suggested..

 

[lastleg]

Curious pyle, have you ever been led to treasure by henscratched rocks? If so please tell us how the
rock appeared and the distance to the treasure. I remember Hawkeye put out a books about signposts
to treasure and he suddenly vanished. Do you think he triggered a deadfall or was in the wrong
business? Some people want to leave a mark > 'Kilroy Was Here' or genuine explorers left signs of their
passing but how does one distinguish between old campsites, boy/girl heart carvings, vandalism, initials,
etc and waybills? I first would wonder why would a sane person bury valuables and then desire to make
it known to strangers?
A typical reply: "Waal they made the marks so when they came back they could find them." Find what?
The marks? "Yeah they all did that. The Spanish, French, everbody did that." Oh yeah? Give me one
example of the Spaniards leaving behind any treasure. That would be contrary to their viscous greedy
nature. Did they leave Inca treasures behind them? Or Aztec treasures?
You have to remember, they didn't leave spoils behind for someone else to find. If they briefly stored
some ore for later transportation they didn't need to make a memorial because they were excellent
tail finders and would not all just forget where it was. Leaving marks would invite indigenous man to
take what was theirs and that was not acceptable.
A study of conquistador behavior in the New World is suggested.
As for the French several legends exist of making incredible ore discoveries, usually in areas that are
not mineralized. You can blow them off.

 

[pyledriver]

Lastleg, sounds like you been drinking some bitter water as of late! I have not found any treasures, mostly for the lack of being able to decipher signs well enough but possibly because they're already gone. That's certainly the case at one of my sites.

I'm not going to argue with you or answer you point by point, there are many wiser than me that I follow who have shown me enough to keep me interested. The King required his fifth, that had to be transported to port, open and shut case. The rest was up to the Spaniards and what they decided. Interestingly, only the kings treasures required markings and systematic approach when being 'stored'.

Treasure hunting is a frustrating and expensive game for sure. Everybody should research first and save a few bucks. However, when you're out hiking and run across a mark, wouldn't you want to know what it meant?

 

[lastleg]

Since you're a Texan I'm pulling for you to find a Spanish treasure sign that actually means anything.
Remember the greedy Spaniards knew there wasn't any gold in Texas so they bypassed it. You see,
back home they had already dug all the gold out of the ground in Spain and were hungry for more so
when they found out they could get to the new world by boat they got all hopped up to come over
here and get ours too.

There were durn few Texicans around to learn them some manners so they just nearly got every speck
with their Spanish Dip Needles. You'd think that would appease them but no they started slaving the
"indigenous" (polite for Indians) making them dig deeper and deeper until the whole American west
was full of holes.

Now here's the interesting part, while all that digging was being done by the slaves the Spaniards got
bored and started scribbling on rocks to pass the time. They made a contest of it betting on who could
make the most turtles and such. That led to fighting, the reason iron suits were found laying around
many years later. The slaves were watching for their chance to drop huge rocks on their helmets and
that's what happened. Most slaves went back to being indigenous but some of them started wearing
the iron suits and scribbling on rocks too. They actually sent up smoke signals to teach other nomads
about rock scribbling, no wonder there's so many treasure signs all around.

Hope that helped.

 

[pyledriver]

Well I'll agree with you that gold is pretty hard to come by in Texas! As such, I follow trail signs (try) that lead to other trails or possibly cache sites. I have one site, described to me as an empty cache site, that certainly falls outside the realm of bored graffiti. BTW-there is a common Spanish symbol nearby. There are several theories as to the motives behind Spanish caches, one of the more interesting ones being that certain caches were placed for the new immigrants to have a start in the new world. Is it or is it not...can't say one way or the other from the lazy boy where I'm sitting right now. I will say that every time I read a story of indians attacking and fabulous loads of treasure being buried, my BS flag waves faster than beyonces butt wiggles! First, how much time did they have to bury it all, second, was anybody left to tell the tale?

And yet, the signs are out there. Some are indian, some are sho nuff graffiti from some old cowboy. Some are straight out of the books that depict the standard signs and symbols used by the Spanish. Who am I to know whether some Spaniard, hopped up on peyote buttons and feeling horsey, didnt just decide to play a trick on all those coming after him by carving the place up? Who am I to say that an actual cache sign, located in Texas where there just isn't much gold is bogus? We can only follow what we see, research what is available and draw conclusions based on what we find.

I look at it this way: I'm tired of what ifs and probably nots and couldn't be's when I can visit museums and read actual accounts of treasures found, many from areas I hunt. They were there once, more might be there, but I will never know without researching whatever I can and trying to track down whatever else I can in the field. It doesn't hurt that I love my field time, pain, bleeding, risk...anything less wont do! Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Venture as smartly and cautiously as possible-but venture nonetheless.