In the past, I have posted (see below for some links to these posts) about the strange engraved stones that were discovered in different parts of Chubut province, Patagonia, during the 20th century, and which were sent to the Salesian Museum in Rawson (their Facebook page), Chubut, and are exhibited there. See these pictures from their Facebook, they show the "engraved stones": Picture 1, Picture 2.
In his book "Patagonica" (online here), Father Manuel Jesús Molina mentions these stones and includes them as plates in his publication. Below are these images and his original captions are translated in each image's caption-
But first, let's read his interpretation of these engraved stones:
"Sculpture style - They are works executed in counter- and bas-relief on stone slabs of very different materials: granodiorite, granite, compact basalt, marble, sandstone, quartz pophyry. They have sulpted human figures seen from the front, and profile, animals, and birds, sometimes forming scenes; weapons and work tools; signs can be seen in the inscriptions that appear to be letters, the phases of the moon, and a symbolic sign that give mental uniformity to the works. In general they have a frame of lines or frets... Decorated (or not), axes and the oquewa [sic] belong to it... With this style is the engraved ceramic of Patagonia, especially in Chubut. The Rawson Museum preserves a slab of stone on which they have reproduced in basrelief different shapes of ceramic objects with their respective decorations. With them, came the engraved plaques, done many times on soft materials like volcanic tuffs. All this makes us suppose that this style is of oceanic origin as shown by the symbolic cross-shaped sign of its bearers. The painted skulls of San Blas would also belong to it, which bear the same magical sign that is seen among the oceanic creatures of the Marquesas Islands, and is engraved on the back of the mythical lizard and painted in red in a dotted circle at Punta Gualicho, in Lake Argentino. An old Alakulup tradition says that long ago, some very bad men arrived in large canoes. Their bodies were painted with large stripes, and they killed everyone they encountered. Surely, their gateway must have been Puerto Aysén; they must have crossed the Andes through Coyhaique and reached Lake Colue Huapi via the Mayo and Senguerr rivers, where they established their settlement. There they mixed with the Patagonians and reached the coast, which they traveled as far as the Paraná River, where they formed the Canals Frau Littoral Group. It can be dated to around 500 AD."
The Engraved Stones and their Captions
From Molina's book Patagónica Figures 70 to 79:
71 - Sculpted art: small bust with an engraved pedestal with emblems on its four faces - Salesian Museum of Rawson No. 737
Okewa
When Molina mentions "Oceanic" he is referring to the Polynesians. The "oquewa" ini the text (sic) and "okewa" pictured above are the words used to designate polished rock clubs used by certain Polynesian groups such as the Maoris of New Zealand. They can also be found under different names, and made in wood, in different islands across the Polynesia.
In a future post we will look into the ceremonial clubs found in the Americas that hint at a Polynesian link or visit to the New World.
Visitors from the West
Molina mentions an ancient myth of the Alakaluf about canoes full of men painted with stripes that murdered their people. These myths could refer to European ships or expeditions from Chile southwards along the Pacific coastline which usually ended up with the Europeans killing the natives. A big canoe could equally be a Polynesian vessel or a European caravel or galleon. Bodies painted with large stripes could refer to clothes (the Alakaluf people just wore some seal skins).
My previous posts on these stones
The "Phoenician" stones were definitively not made by native Tehuelche or Mapuche people, they are very different. And we can therefore conclude that they are either:
- Fake. A forgery, a hoax. That is: someone deliberately crafted these stones with "native" motifs, with the intention of making them appear as authentic native or Phoenician crafts (hence the use of Semitic letters), to sell them to gullible amateur archaeologists.
- Genuine, made by some non-native people like European settlers. By genuine I mean that the persons who made them, did so for some religious, cultural, social reason, and left them behind when they returned to their homeland or disappeared (famine, illness, war). Probably some were made and sold for a profit, to fool those who bought them believing they were genuine native handicrafts.
The posts on these stones:
Tehuelche rock inscriptions. Comparison to "Phoenician" stones.
Phoenicians, Tehuelches, Patagonia and cryptozoology - Part 1 where I asked if "are they genuine or are they forgeries?
If genuine, were they carved by the Tehuelche natives? or by someone else?"
Genuine Tehuelche "inscribed or engraved" stones
Analysis of Tehuelche - Phoenician - Celtic (?) intertwined snakes
: Strange snakes of alleged Celtic or Phoenician origin found engraved on Patagonian rockss. Native or Semitic - Celtic art?
Cryptid on Phoenician - Tehuelche carving, a cryptid on a Tehuelche engraved stone with Phoenician symbols. (" a very peculiar stone which differs from the standard native artistic expression.")
Phoenicians and Hebrews in Pre-Columbian Patagonia
An Article on the Stones
The issue No. 171, of Argentina Austral, published in September 1945, (online here, see p.12) included an article "¿Eran nómades o sedentarios los Tehuelches?" (Were the Tehuelche nomads or sedentary?) by Father Justo M. Ducco. In it, he discusses these engraved stones, and includes more photographs of them, including more samples such as a tortoise in pink granite (pictured below).
The article mentions the stone sculptures as follows (In it, Ducco, interviews Father Antonio F. Fernández, principal of the Rawson Salesian School, which served at that time as the "museum"):
"But what gives this Museum its unique character is the "Archaeological Collection," with its lithoglyphs that intrigue the observer. A dozen or more granite-porphyry plaques, exquisitely engraved in relief, with heads of indigenous people, animals of the region, tools, symbols, and probable inscriptions, surrounded by a geometric border like a fretwork. The stone chosen for these works is solid and fine-grained; diverse in color and composition. And there is an exception, a small marble plaque less than two square decimeters in diameter. [2 dm = 200cm2 = 31 sq.in.] The engraving, or at least its retouching, was executed by percussion with pointed stones, with the patience necessary to achieve impeccable forms and surfaces. Father Fernández tells me that other visitors, more or less dedicated to archaeological matters, expressed their fears that these lithoglyphs may have been brought from Peru in ancient times; or perhaps they are local works by European carvers. I spoke at length with the Father; we examined the plaques and other similar works repeatedly, including a small bust of an indigenous person; we exchanged opinions, suppositions, difficulties, and arguments; and finally, we synthesized our shared opinion in several statements, which I present and elaborate upon here.
1°) The objects are heavy, some of the plaques weighing up to thirty kilos, and the Father has seen some of even greater proportions. We therefore dismiss the suspicion of allochthonous origin, taking into consideration that during the time of their long migrations, the indigenous people lacked vehicles that would have allowed them to carry more than the bare necessities.
2°) Regarding the hypothesis of the European origin of these sculptures, we note first that not all of them contain a single example of an exotic theme. If Europeans had engraved or simply directed the engravings, they would have imprinted their concerns as foreigners on them.
3°) Nor does the horse appear among the animal figures, which can only be explained by accepting that these are productions from a time before the arrival of the Spaniards to our shores; since with the first founding of Buenos Aires, the wild cattle descended from the escaped or abandoned cattle already began to spread towards the pampas.
4°) None of the plaques have a symmetrical face, even if only approximately. Their creators were aware of symmetry, as evidenced by the perfection with which they reproduced the Indian heads seen frontally in low relief, with their fringed headbands and geometrically arranged necklaces; likewise, the turtles, arrows, and other naturally symmetrical motifs. But they were not concerned with symmetry as European or Europeanized artists were; therefore, the outline of the work, traced by a simple fretwork, and the distribution of the figures, lack intentional symmetry.
5°) The works show the work of different hands, as can be seen from the compositions, the details of their execution, and even more so from the fact that the sculptures were found in different, very distant locations. At first glance, the themes might seem repetitive, were it not for the fact that the objects typical of the Patagonian moorland were specifically few: rheas, guanacos, pumas, snakes, lizards, the sun, the four phases of the moon... and add to that two almost indispensable symbols: arrows, such as those found in the riding arenas in their most common and elegant form; and another symbol that leaves us intrigued: Something like a uniform club or a bundle of rods, with two radiating bows or ties, also uniform and without a terminal notch, the whole of which resembles a crude schematization of a lizard's body seen from above. To these elements of the sculptural compositions, we must add several small signs that appear to be hieroglyphs. And there is precisely one plaque that contains about twenty of them, as if it were a mnemonic or learning manual.
6°) It will be objected that, since these were "nomadic" Indians, we cannot attribute to them the perfection displayed by the carvers of these stones."
Next Post: Okewa in the Americas
In a future post I will explore the presence of these okewa in the Americas.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025by Austin Whittall ©
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