- When it comes to comprehending the enigmatic meaning
of rock carvings, the archaeologists of Newcastle upon Tyne take some beating.
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- In the past few years they have cracked everything from
Bronze Age etchings in a Northumberland field to South African cave drawings
that had previously been dismissed as scribblings. But the rock art team
declared itself bamboozled yesterday by the carvings of a face, heart and
foot some in the style of Picasso found close to Northumberland's Scottish
border.
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- The British Museum and English Heritage have been drafted
in to the quest to explain the drawings, which the archaeologists believe
may be 300 years old, but their experts are equally mystified.
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- The archaeologists, Aron Mazel and Stan Beckensall, who
were alerted to the lichen-covered carvings on an isolated boulder by a
farm worker, believe they are the first such designs to have been discovered
in the UK.
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- "We have absolutely no idea what they are,"
says Dr Mazel. "They are nothing like anything we, or anybody else
we have talked to, have seen before."
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- Northumberland's prolific cave artists had previously
been known for basic cup and ring shapes, hacked into rock faces by early
farmers, but the new carvings are far more sophisticated. Two found near
prehistoric rock carvings close to Rothbury consist of a small heart shape
and a stylised carving of a human face. Another, near Wark, is such an
unusual combination of lines and circles that it is impossible to say what
it depicts.
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- "We found the heart marking next to a quarried edge
and [may be] the work of a lonely quarryman," Dr Mazel said. "The
stylised face reminds me of works done by Picasso that were inspired by
African totemic carvings, but an art historian may think otherwise."
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- Dr Mazel added: "It is likely that there are more
unusual carvings out there. We have heard about a carving which resembles
a Napoleonic soldier but we haven't managed to locate it yet."
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=532669
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