Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Pu'uloa Petroglyphs

Here's a few examples of petroglyphs from Pu-uloa ("long hill"). The little I have read about them tends to reinforce the fact that their purpose is a mystery. I thought (as I do) that they looked astronomical in nature, with the pockmarks being stars, the figures representing constellations, etc. I've been poking around on the internet looking for research on this. I got one page that brings up the possiblity, but it doesn't look like a credible study. For one thing, they date the Ki'i petroglyphs at 3000 B.C. As far as my understanding goes, Hawai'i wasn't settled until 1500 years ago.

And how the heck do you map the entire planet in an outrigger canoe?

Anyway.

I'm posting a few of my favorites that look "astronomical". I like the concentric circle drawings and "charts". We were lucky to get to the site at an ideal time for photographing the carvings. I took a lot more, but these are the most clear and interesting to study. I will save the pictures of craters and cooled lava for another post, as this one is quite long enough as it is.

MPK

1 comment:

MPK said...

neat stuff, huh?