Sandstone Artifact from Day's Knob Archaeological Site  Sandstone Artifact from Day's Knob Archaeological Site

The sandstone shown above from two perspectives is visible in situ by the upper wall in the top photo.  Both surfaces show the classic "janiform" quasi-anthropomorphic and zoomorphic faces.  In the leftmost photo, the characteristic face, lower right, has the usual crest, here with the appearance of a helmet; lower left, a more zoomorphic face profile.  In the rightmost photo, the figure is topped with a rectangular block.  Dr. Eric Law, chair of the geology department at Muskingum University, offered his opinion that this stone almost certainly did not acquire its present form entirely by natural processes.

An interesting feature of this stone is a tiny glittering bluish-green flake-like rock (malachite? - nonlocal), adhering to the crest in the leftmost photo above, and shown in close-up below:

 

____________________          ____________________

Below:  Close-ups of the three sandstone pieces in the lower left corner of the square above.)

Below:  Another carved sandstone from the square.

Top of Page

HOME