Stone head effigy found in southern Indiana – The Artsology Blog

I continue to receive interesting photos and stories from readers about rock art and effigies that they are finding … this latest comes from Carl in Indiana. He mentions that he’s in the southern part of the state, and found this large 13 inch tall head effigy in a stream. He didn’t give many details beyond that, but I’m going to share some of my own observations here. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m not a rock art expert myself, but am open to sharing interesting finds by readers of the Artsology Blog in the hope that someone out there might see these posts and have more information to share to help us better understand what we’re seeing.

In most of the pictures below, the left side is the original photo as sent by Carl, and the right side is a duplicate image with my own drawing on top to help show what I’m seeing. As you can see from this first picture, the rock stands upright on its own, the bottom is flat enough that it balances upright showing the human-like features. I see what seems like the suggestion of a forehead and eyebrows, a nose shape and a chin, setting out from a tall neck. The thing that seems especially curious is that vertical line that runs up the (left side) cheek area.

Let’s take another look at that vertical line – in this case, both pictures are the original, unmarked photos sent by Carl – from this angle, there are two vertical lines on this side of the “face.” One can see the profile shape facing right. Those vertical lines look intentional, don’t you think?

Below is another similar view, taken from what would be a 3/4 side/back view, showing the vertical marks again and my markings at right showing the profile that I’m seeing.

One thing that many people write and tell me is that they find stones where the appearance of a person may be different depending upon which angle one sees it. This next pair illustrates my own response to this idea … what’s kind of crazy is that I can see the same shapes suggesting the head effigy from the front and facing-right view, but this next pair is a look when the rock is facing left … and while I still see a head, it’s made up of different parts of the same stone. Here the eye socket and nose are much bigger, and the “mouth” that I see was actually part of the “neck” when seen from the other side … do you see it too?

Any thoughts on this? I can’t emphasize enough that the fact that it’s free standing and has a flat bottom that allows these two different views is quite intriguing … is anyone aware of rock head “totems” or effigies of this size and style? If you have any thoughts on this rock art, please share in the comments section below.