The association of the serpent with the equinox is found at sites around the world, including at the Mayan pyramid of Kukulcán at Chichén Itzá, the Pathfinder site in Colorado, and a sun dagger site at Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon (see chapter 16). Other depictions of serpents associated with archaeoastronomy are found in chapter 17. However, the specificity of the image of a serpent consuming a disc or egg is noteworthy. While the Mojave North Light Serpent is several feet in length, it is similar in imagery to the Kansas earthwork noted in the previous chapter and the famous 1,330-foot-long Ohio Serpent Mound constructed in the shape of a serpent with an open mouth around an oval-shaped mound, as will be seen in detail in chapter 13. They all point to the importance of this motif, yet the symbology cannot be simply explained.
Fig. 10.9. The Ohio Serpent Mound. The Mojave North Light Serpent is a petroglyphic light animation that conveys a similar motif as this mound.
Fig. 10.10. “Typhon’s Egg.” (From Jacob Bryant, Ancient Mythology, vol. III, 1174)
The intrepid Schmidt posited that the inner circle likely represents an egg that is suggestive of the renewal and rebirth celebrated on the equinox. He noted that the story of the “serpent eating an egg” is known to many Native Americans, and Shoshone scholar Curtis Buff suggested that the egg is the fruit of a sky animal.7
In great contrast, however, Schmidt became convinced that the original story came from an ancient transoceanic culture, who taught it to the ancestors of the Native Americans. This is because the motif shows up in Old World cultures. For example, there is the image of a snake wrapped around an egg in the Orphic mysteries of ancient Greece, where it symbolized birth and rebirth, the phallus and the womb. Also, the Egyptian creator deity Cneph is represented as a serpent with an egg thrusting from its mouth. The serpent passing through the circle was his hieroglyphic emblem, which became the ninth letter of the Egyptian alphabet (thita) and evolved into the Greek letter theta.8
SCHMIDT’S THEORIES OF TRANSOCEANIC DIFFUSION
Aside from the serpent/egg motifs and as further proof of his theories, Schmidt maintained that Mojave North contained several “easily recognized” alphabets, including Ogham and Arabic Kufic, as first advanced by Fell. I was swayed by Schmidt’s insistence that Old World peoples and not Native Americans created the petroglyphs, but I wasn’t convinced there was anything easily recognizable in his interpretations of the several scripts he showed me.
Fig. 10.11. Clifford Baldwin’s 1931 drawings of inscriptions at Mojave North. They do not provide an accurate sequence for correctly reading the panel. (Schmidt, Roderick, The Equinox Project. “Clifford Baldwin and the Inyo Zodiac,” www.equinox-project.com/zodia.htm)
Fig. 10.12. An enhanced rendering of the Mojave North Inscription Panel. When looked at straight on, there is little resemblance to either Fell’s or Baldwin’s drawings.
For example, Schmidt defended Fell’s interpretation of the so-called Kufic Inscription, which had become steeped in controversy ever since Fell published “An Ancient Zodiac from Inyo, California” in 1979.9 The problem is that he never visited the site and relied on the drawings that Baldwin published in 1931.10 While Baldwin’s drawings clearly showed some key glyphs, they also provided mistaken placements, which Fell had based his Kufic readings on. His theory was that the characters were a continuation of the symbols on adjacent rocks, but in fact they are not sequenced in that way.
If one stands and faces the panel, it is apparent that there are three sets of inscriptions and not a continuous one as shown by Fell (see figure 10.12 above). When Schmidt investigated that claim he saw the misarrangement of the characters in Baldwin’s notes, but he still, despite my arguments, continued to believe that Fell was correct in asserting the inscription was Kufic. Nevertheless, despite this disagreement the inscription suggests Old World influences, which will be explored in the next chapter.
MORE SOLAR MARKERS
In addition to the Mojave North Light Serpent animation, Schmidt introduced me to another equinox occurrence on my first visit to the site. Toward evening, he pointed out six prominent vertical lines carved on a three-foot pyramid-shaped rock. The six heavily worked lines are divided by sunlight and shadow on the equinox, three lines in shadow and three lines in light (see color insert). This same technique was employed at the far-off Anubis Caves in Oklahoma using twelve lines, as described in chapter 8.
In addition to the six-line equinox alignment, there are several other panels at Mojave North with twelve lines, suggesting that more astronomical alignments such as these remain to be discovered. Schmidt also identified several solstice markers. In one of the alignments, the target is a spiral that is pierced by a sun dagger as the sun sets on the summer solstice.
With Earl Wilson, the local videographer whom I often met at the site, I observed yet another summer solstice sunrise alignment in 2005. As the sun rose, a cylindrical, column-shaped shadow resembling a phallus retracted on the petroglyph panel, with the head of the retracting shadow/serpent/phallus intersecting a pecked circle “target.” At the finale, the outline of the “open mouth” shadow snuggly fit into a pecked target, which was one of three prominently pecked circles on the panel. Thus, unlike the spring equinox Light Serpent, which moves forward to consume the disc, this shadow serpent retreats backward. While yet to be determined, it is likely that the other pecked circles have astronomical significance as well.
Fig. 10.13. Summer solstice sunset alignment at Mojave North: the triangular ray of light pointed west (left) intersects the pecked center ring. Damage to the dolomite surface from blasting reveals the underlying white rock color.
Fig. 10.14. The summer solstice sunrise alignment. A shadow image retreats in this summer solstice heliolithic animation (see also color insert).
I eagerly followed Schmidt around the site, and he showed me other petroglyphs associated with known alignments, including a shelf where the rock overhang that once cast an alignment shadow had fallen.
Though Schmidt and I came to disagree about the nature of the so-called lingual texts, we did agree that the extraordinary archaeoastronomical features at Mojave North included at least one cross-quarter day alignment he had discovered. This is important for the transoceanic hypothesis that will be explored in full in the next chapter, and even though cross-quarter day alignments created by early Native Americans are known, it seems Native Americans rarely celebrated or marked cross-quarter days, while paying attention to the equinoxes and the longest and shortest days.
OTHER MOJAVE NORTH PETROGLYPHS
The petroglyphs at Mojave North appear quite old, and many are not visible to the casual observer. Broadly speaking one can distinguish numerous and different-shaped petroglyphs, grids, abstract-looking designs, sun and star symbols and inscriptions, although at first glance many of the pecked images seem unintelligible, if they can be seen at all.
I was also to learn that at Mojave North there was nothing simple about any one petroglyph, alignment, or even a grinding hole. What appears as a basic petroglyph image often turns out to be complex and multidimensional, requiring astronomical knowledge to fully grasp the meaning or meanings. For example, there are at least thirteen sun or star symbols at the site, and many are known to be associated with archaeoastronomical events, but all of them are very different in form and function. Perhaps the most striking symbol in the stellar category is the interconnected double-sun petroglyph, which is connected to the cross-quarter day alignment mentioned above. See chapter 11 for a detailed description of other solar alignments on this panel that are much more elaborate than Schmidt suspected because they involve the four cross-quarter days.
Fig. 10.16. The double-sun petroglyph. The upper sun is a target for the August and May cross-quarter days.
While the upper sun is visible throughout the year, the lower sun is usually unseen because of the slightly different angle of the rock and weathering. This representation of two interconnected suns is rare and presents a profound cosmological symbol add
ressing two stars, two worlds, two universes.
On the same vertical rock wall panel as the double-sun glyph, a simple etched masculine figure appears on a vertical rock wall facing south. He is referred to by Schmidt as “Lugh, the Long Arm,” who was introduced in chapter 9 and will be described in more detail in chapter 11. The image stands approximately eighteen inches tall and is composed of three major components: a triangular head, a rectangular body, and a large triangular-tipped phallus (see figure 10.17 below). Looking at the panel, most observers are unable to see a single line or any part of the disguised image, yet the fading anthropomorphic petroglyph is perhaps the single largest glyph at the site and is also the target for all the cross-quarter alignments, which are described in the next chapter.
Fig. 10.17. Mojave North petroglyph depicting a figure named by Schmidt as “Lugh, the Long Arm.”
Like the mysterious tripartite symbol below the anthropomorphic figure, there are other glyphs at Mohave North whose meanings are unknown. For example, there are two winged arch-shaped petroglyphs that seem to be unique to Mojave North.
There are also mysterious starlike images, as shown in figures 10.19 and 10.20.
There are also notable animal-shaped glyphs. The largest animal panel has three of what early archaeologists called the Great Basin–style of bighorn sheep, but they actually look like ibex since the horns are so big. However, ibex are not native to the Americas.
The panel in which the “sheep” appear was identified as being the Mojave North Zodiac by Fell, who concluded that constellations are shown in the order in which the sun passed through them at the time of the spring equinox.11 However, again, he was relying on imprecise drawings and misplaced the order and position of the petroglyphs. Fell also held many other mistaken assumptions regarding this panel, including naming an image as a bull instead of a sheep in order to describe the glyph as “Taurus the Bull.”12 Moreover, an examination of the sheep panel indicates a reworking of the petroglyphs. The original and earlier work appears to have been pecked, while the patina coating in some of the glyphs was removed by abrading. Schmidt credits the reworking to the Shoshone, so what the original artist or artists had in mind remains a mystery.
Fig. 10.18. One of the two winged arch-shaped glyphs found at Mojave North. (Author’s enhancement of the damaged left wing)
Fig. 10.19. This starlike petroglyph is assumed to have archaeoastronomical significance.
Fig. 10.20. The symbolic meaning of this and other starlike glyphs at Mojave North remains unknown.
Fig. 10.21. The “three-sheep” panel.
In addition to these petroglyphs, I was able to identify other animal glyphs and figures that had not previously been seen by Schmidt or others. The first image I discerned was on the side of a prominent boulder near the center of Mojave North during the late afternoon of a summer solstice. As the sun began to set, near the bottom of the rock a long-legged doglike glyph with an upright tail became discernible within a confusing collage of pecked petroglyphs, mineral stains, and natural lines. I had stared at this area of the stone many times, yet I had been unable until then to comprehend it. Just like the inscribed jackal image I saw in the Anubis Caves that became “enlightened” on equinox as noted in chapter 8, the doglike glyph in California became illuminated by the setting sun, but on summer solstice.
Fig. 10.22. Mojave North Anubis-like petroglyph. This photo captures the last rays of light at the summer solstice.
On that day I was also to identify a petroglyph of a bird located above the dog glyph, similar in shape to a crane, heron, or possibly an ibis. While Schmidt cautiously agreed with my interpretation of the Anubis and the bird, he was unprepared for another image I could just barely make out: a winged figure above and to the left of the bird. This anthropomorphic image appeared to have an extended snout and a pointed head or hat. Surrounding the head was a circle, and I became excited with this discovery because the head seemed to contain discernible facial features, although they were difficult to fully make out, as the pictures in figures 10.23 and 10.24 below make clear.
Fig. 10.23. Mojave North rock art panel showing the additional animal figures and an anthropomorphic figure above the Anubis petroglyph.
Fig. 10.24. Enhancements by author reveal the images in the rock art panel.
THE SEA ROCK
After a few years of studying Mojave North under the tutelage of Schmidt, I had become one of the few people seriously investigating the virtually unknown-to-the-rest-of-the-world site. But it was no longer merely an archaeoastronomical location for me; it had become a sacred, living, breathing temple with a story to uncover and to reveal. Yes, it was damaged and desecrated, but at least some of the essences of its creation remained, and I thought I might have discovered one of them on the spring equinox of 2007.
It was the late afternoon; I was hiking above the main, windswept site, looking at petroglyphs but ever mindful of how sidelighting by the sun on the rock surfaces could reveal hidden images at this special time of the year. I had been trained to do this by McGlone, and it was now time for the weathered peckings to tell an ancient story.
As I passed a pyramid-shaped rock extruding from the top of the site just before sunset, I could make out a small glyph situated within a natural triangle created by cracks. This rock was approximately twenty-five inches wide, and the one- by two-inch glyph sat among numerous natural grids and crevices on its surface, which created a tangled collage of parallel lines, triangles, and diamond shapes, while lighter areas, especially toward the bottom, had been damaged by blasting operations.
Fig. 10.25. In the foreground, a pyramid-shaped rock above the main site at Mojave North, facing south (see also color insert).
As my eyes struggled to sort out foreground and background, I began to see what looked like an etched face with a pointy hat in the apex of a natural triangle created by the cracks. There was momentary confusion in my mind, but confirmation that more was happening came next: there also was a shadow image with a complete body and profile with an open mouth, a large nose, and what appeared to be a pointy hat approaching the coin-sized petroglyph. I watched in awestruck anticipation as the face of the shadow moved toward intersecting the petroglyph, creating an incredible shadow face-on-petroglyph face alignment at sunset.
It was difficult to recognize the petroglyph among the natural lines and crevices, and perhaps it was the image itself that seemed to go in and out of focus. A modern-day example of this phenomenon is a three-dimensional art known as autostereograms, or more commonly, Magic Eye images. If one stares intently at Magic Eye graphics, the eyes will refocus on the “hidden” images within them.13 Thus, while observing a two-dimensional graphic having height and width, the viewer must learn to focus eye and brain to see a “hidden” 3-D graphic having a depth that was not initially recognized.
Fig. 10.26. Close-up of the glyph on the pyramid-shaped rock identified by author as the subject of an equinox heliolithic animation (see figure 10.29 below).
Fig. 10.27. The one-inch by two-inch petroglyph is adorned with a pointy hat (shown with scale marker to indicate its size).
Fig. 10.28. This enhanced photo shows the placement of the carved head glyph within an inverted triangle. The upright triangle shape and the inverted triangle are created by natural cracks in the pyramid-shaped rock.
Fig. 10.29. An autostereogram? This series of pictures shows the sequence of the shadow moving across the petroglyph over two hours, leading up to sunset on the equinox. The animation incorporates a monkeylike image that is revealed as the shadow nose-pointer fits into the nose of the petroglyph (see color insert).
Looking down on the rock, the small profile had become quite apparent to me. Excitedly, I named the rock the SEA Rock, for “Sunset Equinox Animation.”
My mind raced on to speculate about its origins because I thought I could see a resemblance between the SEA petroglyph at Mojave North and Hanuman, the monkey god of India, who plays a prominent role in the Indian epic p
oem the Ramayana, the major Hindu epic poem of India.
Hanuman represents one of the most common manifestations of the concept of bhaki, or devotion to God, and he is considered to be an avatar, the eleventh incarnation of Lord Shiva. Often depicted holding a mountain or geometrical shape in front and a club behind, portrayals of Hanuman are also pictured with a pointy, Pythagorian hat. These depictions are similar in many respects to the image in the Mojave North SEA glyph I found. Both had a diamond shape and bore something like a club or phallus behind their heads.
Fig. 10.30. A sculpture of Hanuman with a triangle representing a mountain and a club in his hand.
Could this coin-sized glyph I had discovered represent an Indus Valley connection to America? Despite the striking visual connotations, I still had to wonder if there was a real, meaningful parallel here, or was I just seeing an illusion, a coincidental simulacrum? Simulacra are unreal, vague semblances of apparent representations, especially likeness to faces; in this case a coincidence of natural features, light, and shadow might have created a phenomenon on an auspiciously located rock. The occurrences of simulacra in rock art are traps for both the trained and the untrained observers.
Later on, as I shared time-lapse photographs of the image with others, I became aware of the possibility of multiple interpretations, thereby preventing the formation of a consensus about its meaning. In other words, I had to think carefully about the possibility that I was doing what Fell sometimes did when he made assumptions that were later proved to be wrong. If that was the case, would I be venturing an interpretation that would cast doubt on the credibility of my telling of the New History? Or worse, might I be reporting an interpretation that was solely a figment of my imagination?
Secrets of Ancient America: Archaeoastronomy and the Legacy of the Phoenicians, Celts, and Other Forgotten Explorers Page 17
