00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome to the show everybody if you're hearing my voice Chris Webster that means that Alan I are talking about something cool. So Alan what are we talking about today. 00:10.29 alan Well Chris you know I've been kicking around the cosos for about 50 years now and seeing a lot of seen thousands and thousands of images of rock art. It's the one of the densest areas of rock art in the entire western hemisphere. There's supposed that. 00:26.60 archpodnet Oh. 00:28.64 alan 200000 individual instances of rock art. But I hadn't gone to a site called the portuguese bench which is very well known. It's a site that the archeological institute has acquired. It was ah excavated in part by David S Whitley who is one of the most prestigious rock art professionals in all the land. 00:47.87 archpodnet Um. 00:48.80 alan And um, they excavated a village site on the eastern skirt of the sierras and it was ah mainly of the newberry period um goes from about 2000 bc to about Circa a d one and I heard that there was ah a rock art panel there I said you know I'd love to see that rock art panel see what it is well they. 01:07.30 archpodnet Um. 01:07.79 alan They showed it. They showed it to me and I was gobsmacked. It's an enormous ah pillar panel of granite that juts out of the ground. It's big as hell and it's covered with imagery covered but you couldn't see it very well. Um, it's on granite which is. 01:25.66 archpodnet Um. 01:26.65 alan Very unusual so we took a bunch of pictures of it. We gave it to ah a specialist to work up and post process and the more he studied it the more interesting it got and it ended up being probably 1 of the most outstanding Panels. Of Imagery I've ever seen and the one that is certainly has some of the most supernatural content and and I would say metaphorically significant cosmological elements that I've ever seen packed into one Panel. So. 02:00.75 archpodnet Um. 02:01.75 alan I Thought it would be worthy to talk a little bit about it and and ah explain why this particular panel ah may be ah rather important. 02:13.74 archpodnet Yeah, um, hey before we continue can I include an image of this in the show notes is it able to share. Okay, okay, let me. 02:18.26 alan Yeah, please do I sent you that that one is so we have it proper credit that's by Bernard Jones he's a retired artist and professor at the cal state fullerton campus and he does what's called pointillism. 02:33.67 archpodnet Um, okay, okay, okay. 02:37.43 alan Which means he's he studies the rock art images themselves and magnifies them and goes literally point by point by point everyone those dots in that picture he put on with a pen this picture probably took him eighty eighty hours minimum 02:55.74 archpodnet Choose okay, all right, let me I'll put all that in the show notes with this picture and I'm gonna come back in with ah responding to you. So yeah, check this out in the show notes. So we've got a we've got a. Copy this picture in there and it's really a drawing of the panel that was done and we'll put some attribution and some credits down there in the show notes but take a look at it because while we're talking about this. You're really going to want to see it so but I've seen. And I know you have too. But I've seen some panels with a lot of different things on it right? A lot of different motifs and this the cool thing about this one is there's so many different things on it right? There's so many there's not like 1 common thing or common thread or even common style throughout this panel There's just. 03:39.60 alan Yes, it's it's it's a very diverse pen. It has it has every possible iconographic you know, would you call it metaphorical indexical. You know instrument that I've seen in the cosos for the last fifty fifty years 03:40.58 archpodnet So many things going on here that you really just got to sit and take it in. 03:55.64 archpodnet Um. 03:57.84 alan All arrayed on this panel. Um, we we put together a a book that you've heard a lot about that we spent a couple of years putting together and it's all about the serpent as a you know as a vehicle or an indexical animal or semiotic metaphor. 04:00.55 archpodnet Um. 04:15.90 archpodnet Um. 04:16.53 alan To ah understand the cosmological significance and the thread that goes through from the most ancient utto aztecan people all the way through from Eastern California to the american southwest to the high cultures of Mexico. And that was just put out by bergen it's called the iconicity of the udoa techans it's by tertha mukohabadi and myself and the reason I reason I talk about that is this panel is full of sake of snakes and serpents literally full. You look at it. How many snakes are there? Oh my word. 04:43.42 archpodnet Um. 04:55.72 alan They're all over the panel aren't they Yeah yeah, now the other thing that's unusual about the panel is of all the images I've seen of snakes in the cosos they usually are shown. 04:56.78 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, there's so many. 05:14.58 alan In association alongside of some sort of a animal-human figure. Let's say I've only I've only seen it I think 2 other times where they're actually in a particular figure's hand right. 05:23.39 archpodnet Um. 05:34.48 alan Or mouth just twice and all the thousands and thousands of panels I've seen this one has it once twice even 3 times it looks like they're holding the snake in their hand and and you can tell what and you can tell what kind of snakes these are. 05:36.40 archpodnet Um, okay, really. 05:46.81 archpodnet Yeah, they are. 05:53.27 alan Because I've learned from snake experts that when you have these triangular heads on those snakes. They are the poisonous snakes the famous so rattlesnakes rather than the bull snakeke or any other kind of snake. These are the these are the venomous ones The ones that'll poison. 06:08.30 archpodnet Ah. 06:12.61 alan And and can potentially kill you. 06:16.17 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, I'm seeing I see at least 3 and possibly the figure on the top might be holding 2 snakes but it's probably something smaller like a staph or a stick because it's ah or even a bone. It almost looks like a femur at the top. What is holding it is this other hand. 06:27.10 alan Yeah, yeah, well well the interesting thing. Yeah, the interesting thing about that topmost figure. Um he he or she I think it's a she. Um. 06:32.77 archpodnet Yeah. 06:43.80 alan You know has human-like qualities the feed are human the the torso is human. It's a solid bodied figure but the face is the face is a star I have never ever seen a face as a star anywhere in the cosos anywhere. Never never never never. 06:47.41 archpodnet I see it. 07:00.32 archpodnet Yeah, and I think it might be a ah male figure too because there's no, there's no detail in the chest but I'm pretty sure it has genitals I'm not really sure. 07:02.85 alan And it's just. 07:12.26 alan Right now if you look very closely at the genitals. It's ah it's an inverted u and that's a uterus and that's a female and in fact, if you look at at all 3 of those figures they have something there ah in their you know in the genital package that would lead us. 07:17.65 archpodnet Okay, okay. 07:30.15 alan Sometimes they call it a podenddo or a podendum anyways. Most likely those are all 3 are females. Um, and and 1 of the reasons I say that is not given that these are so informative. It's that I'm finishing up ah a multi-year study of you know all of these. 07:34.78 archpodnet Okay. 07:48.40 alan Decorated animal-human figures throughout the cosos. We've classified them. We've analyzed them to death by the way and ah it it runs that ah almost 3 or 4 to 1 feminine versus masculine. The feminine figures are. 07:55.18 archpodnet Um. 08:06.92 archpodnet Um. 08:07.99 alan Overwhelmingly ah, exemplified during this period of time and the and they have the the decorated torsos rather than the solid bodies and those solid bodies come in a little bit later and in a big way. They become men That's when the men come in. 08:28.49 alan Interesting The um, the bit go ahead, please ask questions go ahead. 08:28.93 archpodnet Um, yeah, yeah, one of the other figures that's in here looks like it's drawn inside of another animal right in the center. 08:42.29 alan It is it is it is yes yes I've never seen that either. That's the first for me. Um I think that's either a it. It could be a bobcat. It could be a cougar could be a mountain lion. The. 08:44.50 archpodnet That's crazy I've never seen. Yeah. 08:58.41 archpodnet Um. 08:58.59 alan Ah, it could. It could be a wool or ah or something like that. Um the figure above it is it definitely a mountain lion. They usually these show them with very very long and extended tails and the rounded ends of their legs Those little club-like feet. 09:12.13 archpodnet Um. 09:17.12 alan Ah, little circular feed or sort of a clue to that. Um, but yeah, that little that little little figure of a little diminished figure that's inside of the other animal is is rather rather unique. There are bighorn sheep all throughout the whole figure. 09:17.63 archpodnet Brett. 09:33.35 archpodnet No yes. 09:36.85 alan But most of them most of them are not classic koso in in style. They're a little bit earlier and all the non koso ones are moving from right to left and the 2 coso ones are moving from left to right. 09:42.83 archpodnet Really. 09:54.66 alan There's a coso bighorn sheep off to the right and there's one you can just see ever so slightly? um, sort of as ah, just to the right of that mountain lion up at the top and it's got that classic bifurcated front front facing look to it look to it and yeah and you could miss it very easily. 10:10.53 archpodnet Um. 10:12.92 archpodnet Um, yeah. 10:14.72 alan I Did several times before I before it jumped out and bit me but it's got stars all over it. Um, which I haven't seen ever anywhere else in terms of the stars. It's got the projectile points that we keep talking about the elco the seriesres projectile points those ones that are. 10:18.20 archpodnet Wow. 10:33.37 archpodnet Ah. 10:34.70 alan A diagnostic of that period the newberry period from Two Thousand B C to a d one. It's also got a foot in the very center of it and I write about the foot and it's a it's a fertility sign this foot thing. Um, there's a you know. 10:52.00 archpodnet Um. 10:53.16 alan It's prominent in the sort of indigenous cosmology to talk about feet as having sort of a reproductive symbolism gig. It's even in the bible by the way when they when they talk about ah a association they said they. 11:02.44 archpodnet Oh. 11:12.90 alan She spent the night at his feet. That's the that's the line that it says to sort of avoid talking about the ah other element but it's a foot turning into a projectile point turning into a foot and the projectile point is. 11:15.87 archpodnet Um. 11:17.42 archpodnet Um, yeah. 11:29.27 alan Is emanating these rays these power lines as you call them right? Yeah and go ahead. 11:33.22 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, that's the the that projectile point looking thing with the that looks like a foot turning into a projectile point. You're totally right to the right of that there is another foot that looks more obviously like a foot above the um. 11:41.99 alan 8 11:47.97 alan Yes, yes. 11:50.94 archpodnet The kind of deformed picture of ah a person or something like that. But what gets me is the animal underneath all of that the horn coming off of that animal is attached. It goes right up through on a line right? up to the foot that's in the center of it. Um, and I don't know if that's I mean that looks like it was an element of the drawing. Not some sort of feature of the rock. 12:07.87 alan It it it. Ah no, no, it is it is. It's a connection. It's a connection and again you know, ah I know I can beat a dead horse. But this this particular panel screams to me. Ah the issue. The issues of fertility. 12:10.72 archpodnet And yeah. 12:27.11 alan And reproduction and resurrection and renewal and um, you know part of that is this this obsession with snakes that had to do with their losing of their skin where they shed their skin and they come back again. 12:30.85 archpodnet Ah. 12:46.19 alan And part of the ancient Utah Aztec and and even the actual you know, classic high cultures of Mexico had had a fascination or an obsession with snakes having to do with the the resurrection theme the theme of death and life. 12:52.84 archpodnet Um. 13:03.70 archpodnet Brett. 13:04.60 alan Life life and death. Um, when one opens up ah an individual and looks inside of them. Of course you see the um the veins the arteries and the um elements of the stomach and they all look like snakes and so. Ah, this kindred this this kinship of energy energetics and vitality coming from these snake-like organs was something that was part of the cosmology of the um you know of the of the indigenous people in the high cultures of Mexico. 13:22.58 archpodnet Um. 13:33.88 archpodnet Yeah. 13:39.32 archpodnet All right with that. Let's take a break and we'll come back on the other side and continue talking about this amazing panel. Don't forget to check it out in the show notes so you can follow along with what we're saying back in a minute.