Celtic navigators and the New England stone chambers

A few days ago I wrote about the Minoans and the hypothesis that they visited America and traded native copper (pure metal) from Lake Superior in USA to the Mediterranean. I don't agree with that theory. Among the evidence put forward by those who do believe in it, was the existence of stone buildings in the northeastern states of the U.S.

There are stone structures found in different parts of New England and New York that have been attributed to European visitors. They are considered to sophisticated to have been built by the Native Americans who lived there, or by the later wave of settlers that came from Europe starting in the 1600s.

So, who built them? According to an article that has studied these structures (Lost Histories: The Story of New England’s Stone Chambers by Benjamin Lord, Northern Woodlands, Vol 20, No. 4 Winter 2013, p.24), some believe that they are the work of ancient European mariners, such as Celts.

The hypothesis is that thousands of years ago, Celts from Europe, crossed the North Atlantic and built these stone buildings in America.

Those who support this idea mention the stone structure at Mystery Hill, in Salem, New Hampshire, USA. or the Upton Chamber in Upton Massachusetts. They discard a colonial construction, or even a later origin (they may have been built as root cellars in the late 19th century) and consider that the natives couldn't have built them. So the explanation is that they are megalithic sites, similar to those erected by the Bronze Age Europeans 1,500 to 3,500 years ago.

Mystery Hill

This site is located at 105 Haverhill Rd, Salem, NH. It is a private site or park, known as "America's Stonehenge". It was acquired by William Goodwin, an archaeologist in 1936 and following his death in 1950, it was acquired in 1956 by an entrepreneur named Robert E. Stone, who charged an admission fee to see the massive stone structures. He also wrote some "papers" studying the site. The place is still operated by the Stone family. Below is a plan of the site (Source):

Goodwin believed that the site was built by Culdee Monks, who had crossed the Atlantic from Ireland (see my posts on Irish monks and America) around 1000 AD.

Stone, on the other hand promoted another origin, he asserted that the stones were aligned with astronomical points. Below I summarize on of his articles, published in 1971.

The site has many massive, stone structures and covers an area of 12 acres (6 ha). It has wells, stone walls, buildings, carvings, drains, and chambers. One stone slab was named with the eye-catching name of the "Sacrificial Table", located inside the site's largest structure. There are "monoliths" around the site that Stone argued were set with "astronomical alignments, similar to "Stonehenge" in England, are quite impressive. Thus far, the winter and summer Solstices for both rising and setting of the sun are very accurate, when viewed from the exact center of the site; the "Sacrificial Table", 500 feet away. Setting of the sun during'the Equinox also lines up on a dolmen-like structure built into the outer wall" Source.

Stone provides a historic timeline for the site: The Pattee family lived near it from 1823 to 1847, they built a house on it which burned down in 1855. The Pattees quarried the site, destroying up to 40% of it. Some slabs ended up as curb stones in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Following Stone's acquisition, the newly formed New England Antiquities Research Association (N EARA) in 1964, the site was excavated and radiocarbon dated.

Stone gave an age of 180 BC and 1045 BC and asserted that they "are indicative that a previously unrecorded megalithic culture was in existence in this hemisphere... This culture... not only included sites like Mystery Hill, but various other stone-constructions that we are documenting, such as dolmens, tunnels, strange non-Colonial walls, unusual wells and many other oddities."

Some views of the site, the "monolith" with the sign is one of those said to mark astronomical positions.

Views of Mystery Hill. Source

Barry Fell, in 1975 visited the site and coincidentially, Stone found a tablet inside one of the chambers at Mystery Hill with inscriptions that Fell immediately recognized as Ogam, an ancient Celtic sript. He also concluded that one of them was written in Libyan while the other was Phoenician or Iberian Punic script. According to Fell, one of the buildings had been dedicated to Baal by Canaanites who reached this spot.

Fell wrote a book about ancient European visitors to America (America B.C.: Ancient Settlers in the New World) mentioning other similar sites and Celtic inscriptions in New England and further inland, like the Davenport tablets. Fell says that Celts from what is now Spain, reached America 3,000 years ago establishing their kingdom, Iargalon, there. Source

Mystery Hill has been radiocarbon dated to around 2,000 BC, but this age is compatible with Native American occupation. A calendar aligned with the position of the sun (Solstices and equinox) is unknown among the Algonquian tribes so it is probably a coincidence. But, they were capable of building large structures like the massive earth mounds (see my posts on mound-builders).

Mainstream archaologists consider that "America's Stonehenge" is the work of either American natives or later settlers, and was not built by Bronze Age Europeans. (Source)

Mystery Hill Tourist Attraction

The official website of the America's Stonehenge tourist attraction states that:

"Unfortunately, the original builders of America's Stonehenge remain unknown. While we do know that early construction happened here about 4,000 years ago, no diagnostic artifacts from that time have been discovered. The earliest diagnostic artifacts, attributed to the Pawtucket people, are dated to about 2,000 years ago. Similarities to megalithic structures in Europe, as well as the discovery of possible Old World inscriptions, has led some researchers to believe that there may be a connection between this site and ancient Western European or Mediterranean cultures. In the ongoing research of this site, we strive to keep an open mind. Before forming any conclusions about the origins of this site, it is important to follow where the evidence leads. Hopefully, with continued study, we can reveal who actually built these structures and what culture or cultures used the site over its thousands of years of history."

We must point out that diggings at the sie have discovered many Native American objects including a dugout canoe, a teepee, stone tools and ceramics, but no Celtic, Irish or Phoenician or Carthaginian artifacts, except for the "inscribed stone" the Baal Stone discovered in 1975 and deciphered by Fell. Pictured below:

Baal Stone. Source

It has what appears to be chiseled lines on it, in a random and disorganized way. Not a neat inscription or glyphs. Fell says it reads: "To Baal on behalf of the Canaanites this is dedicated." (Source).

This website has a list of the astronomical alignments mentioned for this site, and also includes pictures of the place.

Finally, there is a paper online that mentions a blue-light beams spotted at the American Stonehenge site common to all stonehenge-type buildings as well as pyramids. But they are not ghosts but "Manitou" that "can perhaps be categorized as signals generated by geophysical events... the equivalent modern descriptor would be that there are no “ghosts", or haunted houses, or TV's which tip over by their influence —there is only causative electromagnetic field!" (see Edward and Roger McLeod, 2001, America's Stonehenge, (A.S.), As a Prototype For Expected Phenomena At "The" Stonehenge, and Also For Psychophysical Events and Native American "Manitou."). The McLeods also mention this site regarding "Stellar Gravitational Neutrino Interactions (see their 2009 abstract online). The title may sound like real physics, but it seems to be nonsense. They report that neutrino flux from stars and quasars pass through the Earth (up to here it is true) and as they "cannot penetrate these graviton-like strings. They ... project... stick figures within instruments like the Watch House at America’s Stonehenge, and perhaps the chamber beneath the Great Pyramid..." I would have tended to agree with geophysical processes that form lights in the sky (see my posts about earthquake lights), but neutrinos somehow focused by quantum particles in certain ancient structures is beyond science.

Closing comments

I stand by the findings of a serious research article by Feathers et al, 2022 (Luminescence dating of Enigmatic rock structures in New England, USA, Quaternary Geochronology, Nov. 2022, 101402, Vol 73, doi 10.1016/j.quageo.2022.101402): "Enigmatic rock structures in the form of walls, chambers, tunnels, and cairns are common archaeological features in northeastern United States, but the age of their construction is mostly unknown. Debate persists as to whether they are colonial or pre-colonial in age. Luminescence dating ... place their construction in the late 16th century, just before sustained colonial settlement... The evidence suggests a pre-colonial construction, by ancestors of modern native Americans." Clear and simple, nobody came from Phoenicia, Carthage or Ireland, these structures were built by local Native Americans.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Newberry Tablet - Minoan script in the Great Lakes

In post on Jewell and Fell's theory about Minoan presence in America, engaging in copper trade between the Levant and the Great Lakes, I mentioned the Newberry Tablet as evidence put forward by them to back their theory. This post will look at the tablet with a critical eye.

Did it ever exist?

As you can verify by googling the phrase "Newberry Tablet", there are no formal, serious, scientific articles about this artifact. There are some newspaper articles, a few blog posts, and one "paper" (if we can call it that), discussing the characters. All of them reproduce the same image of the tablet, shown below, supposedly a picture taken by the Smithsonian Institution, or taken in Michigan and sent to the Smithsonian in 1896:

Photograph of the Newberry Tablet. Source

The tablet's fate is not quite clear, some sources say it crumbled into dust (it was a clay tablet) as it was not properly preserved or treated, another, posted by the museum in St. Ignace, Michigan, that houses it, shows a deteriorated piece of brown clay asserting that it is what remains of the tablet. See the image below:

Newberry Tablet nowadays. Source

The photograph and the the clay tablet look very different from each other. Are they the same object?

The story behind the Tablet

The museum's post adds that "The Newberry Tablet is shrouded in mystery. The tablet was discovered in the 1890s under a tree in a farmer’s field. Since its discovery, it has ignited imagination and debate about its origins and its meaning. Despite the long-held belief that the tablet is fake, new research is being conducted testing the theory that it was left by an ancient group of people called Minoans. So, is it an ancient relic left behind by Minoan explorers or a clever hoax? You decide."

A local newspaper published an article about it in 2015 which states that the tablet measured 19 by 26 inches (48 x 66 cm) and had a grid with 140 squares that contained symbols of some unknwon language.

It was discovered in 1896 when two loggers were felling trees on a plot of land close to the town of Newberry, Michigan, USA (See the spot in Google Maps). They discovered the tablet and two clay figures next to it (McGruer's Idols). They were tangled in the roots of an old tree (perhaps as some proof of their great antiquity). As nobody understood the symbols, they were photographed and the pictures were sent to scholars at the University of Michigan and the Smithsonian in Washington. The tablet was dismissed as a forgery, a hoax, quite common at that time when mound-diggers produced many inscribed objects to sell them at a profit.

They were kept in town until they were bought by Henry Vaughan Norton and moved 60 miles away to the town of St. Ignace, on the Straits of Mackinac and exhibited as an attraction at a tourist site owned by Norton, called Fort Algonquin. He opened it in 1926 (Source) and ran it until the mid 1950s. Its remains can still be seen (Google Maps), below is an old postcard.

Norton died in the 1980s, and according to the story, the tablet was acquired by Dr. Donald Benson (1924-2005). Benson, a local orthodontist founded the Fort de Buade Museum around that time (1980s) and housed it in a building he owned, which he had purchased for his AM radio station in the mid 1960s, and shut down in 1979. Benson stocked the museum with ihis personal collection of local historic artifacts. After Benson's death in 2005 the Michilimackinac Historical Society took it over. (see this source and this one).

The online posts (see this one as an example) embrace Jewell and Fell's theory and hint that the inscription is probably Minoan, but show some skepticism: "One theory is they have to be a hoax because if they are supposed to be hundreds or even thousands of years old, from the time of the Minoans, how did they survive for so long only to be eroded away in a short amount of time after they were discovered. Like I wrote at the beginning of the post, I am not sure it is real or a hoax, but it is an interesting story."

Another blog, Archaeological Fantasies (Occam's Trowel, Sifting archaeological fringe to get to archaeological fact), has an objective post that dismisses the tablet as a hoax, and summarizes the story, along the lines I gave further up, and concludes with a sober disqualification of the tablet:

"What we can say for sure is that the tablet is not Minoan, Hittite, or any of the other cultures it’s supposed to be written by. Since it’s not any of those cultures, there is no way it could be translated. So any claims that the Tablet proves contact with Pre-Columbian peoples is not valid.
It is my opinion that the Tablet in the Museum is not the same Tablet as the one in the pictures from 1898. I base this on the images as they have been provided. It’s not the best way to evaluate them, I admit that, which is why this is my opinion on the matter and not a fact of any kind. If evidence comes to light that can prove the Tablet’s existence and location over the 60+ year gap between photographing and being purchased by Dr. Donald Benson, then I would re-evaluate my position.
With all of that, I must declare this Tablet a hoax. Neither the facts about the Tablet, nor the speculation is convincing enough to say otherwise.".

Nevertheless, an article (Mormonism’s Encounter with the Michigan Relics by Mark Ashurst-McGee while accepting that another set of articles (the Scotford artifacts) are forgeries, and a hoax, has a different approach regarding the Newberry stone and accompanying figures: "The inscribed stone, discovered in 1896 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, does not fit within the spatio-temporal context of the Scotford scheme. Scotford worked in the state’s main land mass. Except for the first phase of the hoax, which was very localized, Scotford’s work took place after 1896. The Newberry tablet bears only a superficial resemblance to the Scotford-Soper artifacts. Figurines of the Newberry type are without parallel among Scotford’s known productions." Of course, it does not state whether the tablet and the figures are genuine or fakes.

Not the only Tablet

My research uncovered a new fact, there was another tablet discovered in the same region at roughly the same time! Such coincidences are so improbable, that they mean that the artifacts are hoaxes or, a naturally occuring phenomenon that were interpreted as a manmade objects. The latter may well be a good explanation for these tablets.

This is the story: The Newberry tablet was not the first one to be discovered in St. Ignace. Apparently in 1892 (one year before the Chicago World Fair, another tablet was unearthed while digging a ditch at the St. Ignace Court House, where the future office of A. J. Gennell, county clerk, would be later built (Source), the following article published in a local newspaper at that time, describes the event:

The facts tie in with this information: In 1883 Alfred J. Gennell owned a grocery and general store, he was born on Mackinack Island in 1844, and moved to St. Ignace in 1881, (Source), he later became a Public Notary, Real Estate Dealer and city clerk (1888 to 1906). He passed in 1935.

This second tablet existed, and was reported by the Smithsonian Institution on page 180 of its 1914 Report on the progress and condition of the United States National Museum for the year ending June 30, 1914 pictured, and titled "GENNELL, A. J., St. Ignace, Mich.: Fragment of limestone with natural markings resembling ornamental designs. (55998)" This is a list of "List of Acceessions to the Collection During the Fiscal Year 1913-1914." This means that a piece of the tablet was sent to the Smithsonian, accepted, and added to its collection. However, note that the description says "natural markings resembling ornamental designs." The piece of sandstone was not manmade, it had natural inscriptions that resembled symbols. The Smithsonian received the sample of the tablet in 1914, roughly twenty years after the stone was discovered.

McGruer's Idols

One of the versions about how the tablet was found says that it was unearthed on the McGruer farm, located close to Newberry, with the stone idols also known as McGruer'

I searched for John McGruer on ancestry.com, and came up with his bio: "John McGruer was born on February 12, 1858, in Canada. He married Catherine (Kate) McMillan in 1883. They had one child during their marriage. He died on May 20, 1917, in Newberry, Michigan, at the age of 59." He was a pioneer, and also operated timber business, the Tahquamenon Logging Museum preserved his homestead house, which can be seen on their website in a picture, it has a sign that reads "McGruer House" on it. The place is 2 km (1.3 mi) north of Newberry (Google map) on the south bank of the Tahquamenon River.

The figures are on exhibition in St. Ignace with the remains of the tablet. Pictured below in color, and a black and white picture supposedly from the Smithsonian. The images came from this source and this one.

In a book titled This Land: America 2,000 B. C. to 500 A. D., by May, W. N. (2012), you can read about the tablet and the figures, which are not made of clay, but of stone! It cites a local Newberry newspaper article as follows (my comments in brackets):

"Jacob Brown and George Rove, both residents of Newberry were looking for deer, and in the course of their hunting, startled a mink, which made for a swamp nearby and took refuge in a hollow stump. In digging under one side of the stump to get at the mink, they struck stone which bore evidences of the handwork of man. Becoming interested, they secured picks and spades, and unearthed the stones. As a result of their labors, thre stone images were uncovered, also a large stone tablet. All four objects were cut from brown sandstone, the rock probably coming from the northeastward where the pictured rocks, great cliffs of sandstone, worn by the wind and wave into fantastic forms frown for many miles upon the blue waters of the great lake [learn more about these cliffs]. Of the three images, the largest is that of a man in a sitting posture, nearly life size. This statue is on a pedestal formed from the same piece of stone. The second image, from point of size, is that of a woman, and is a trifle under three feet in height [90 cm], while the third is an image of a child, and like the man, is postured in a sitting attitude and is about two feet high [60 cm]. All three of the images were found placed with faces towards the east, which may have been accidental, but more probably intentional, and this points strongly to sun worship...
Near these figures was found a slab of brownstone averaging six inches [15 cm] in thickness and eighteen by twentyfive inches on each face.
One side was smoothed as carefully as the coarse structure of the rock had allowed, while upon the other face were engraved a series of inscriptions each set in a square of approximately one and a half inches, there being 140 of these."

The description of the tablet coincides with what I have mentioned further up, but this source states that the tablet was made of sandstone, not clay. Yet Betty J. Sodders (1928-2018) in the paper mentioned further down in the next section, after stating that together, the statues weighed almost 1,000 pounds (453 kg) and made from pinkish clay adding, that the initial reports said they were made of brownstone (Sodders, B, p. 24).

Very few "Serious" articles about the Tablet

Betty Sodders lived in St. Ignace, and was an amateur historian, she wrote about the tablet in her 1990 book Michigan Prehistory Mysteries, and according to online forums, she wrote to Mrs. Benson about sending the clay tablet to California to be radiocarbon dated, but the results were never published. She also wrote a paper: Betty Sodders, McGruer’s Gods and the Newberry Stone, The Ancient American 1 (March-April 1994): 24–26.

Another paper was written by Dr. Minas Tsikritsis in 2024, who is a school professor of informatics who is interested in Aegean scripts, based in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, his article is titled The Newberry Stone, ESOP, The Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers · Volume 30 p.220. (it can be read online). In his paper, Tsikritsis attempts to identify the script, concluding that it may not be a forgery:

"The Newberry Tablet is a unique artifact... Consequently, cannot be attempted a replacement of the symbols with possible phonetic values, which have been attributed in table 1, since only the 24 out of 39 symbols are similar to the cyprominoan script. Since the remaining 15 cannot be recognized, the subject of reading and interpreting the inscription still remains open. Nevertheless, the replacement of the symbols that have great resemblance to the symbols of the Cypriot-Minoan script, gives us words that are actually names of people who come from the region Kamiros ofRhodes and they are mentioned as ka-mi-ri-ta-wi.
Probably the inscription was written between the 12th and the 8th century BC and its symbols were influenced by the Cypriot-Minoan script. A percentage of 25% approx of its symbols has to be a local creation. The modification of a syllabic system in another region is a known phenomenon. A similar case was the case of Cypriot-Minoan script (1650-1050 BC) that was based on Linear A (1800-1530 BC). We should also note that the horizontal and vertical lines of the Newberry Stone is a characteristic not found in other script artifacts of the Cypriot-Minoan writing system. Regarding the authenticity of the tablet, we may argue that the Stone is probably not counterfeit, because it could not have so many Cypriot-Minoan symbols, since by the time that Newberry tablet was found —in 1896— the symbols of the Cypriot-Minoan script had not been found yet. The first symbols of Cypro-Minoan were found on two cylinder seals found in 1875 in Cyprus but did not receive publicity until 1957. These seals were bearing 5 and 4 symbols Cypriot-Minoan script respectively. Two of symbols found on the seals exist also in the Newberry stone tablet"

Closing Comments

Interesting story, very likely a hoax, well done, but a hoax or, people believing that a natural sandstone bears manmade inscriptions. The idols or gods seem to confirm the artifacts are fakes. I don't think that Minoans reached the Great Lakes and left some tablet and idols hidden in a lost river in the middle of nowhere.

Some blogs and other sources

There is a blog, Noahs age that deals with this artifact, and includes texts, translations, interpretations, and wild theories about comets!

Up North Michigan mentions the tablet.

Another blog, archaeological fantasies.

Charles Sprague Taylor, 1991, Tahquamenon Country: A Look at Its Past. page 113

C. Fred Rydholm, 2006, Michigan Copper, the Untold Story: A History of Discovery. page 123

Mertz, Henriette, 1964, The Wine Dark Sea: Homer's Heroic Epic of the North Atlantic. United States: Mertz. page 131.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025by Austin Whittall © 

Minoans in America

Not long ago, I wrote a post about the Native Americans from the Great Lakes region of U.S.A., who mined native copper and used it for practical and ornamental artifacts (axes, jewels, spear heads, etc). For over 5,000 years different tribes operated this mining, processing, and trading emporium across North America.

However, some authors have suggested that the copper was extracted by Mediterranean people (i.e. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, or Minoans). In today's post we will look into some of these wild theories.

Minoans and copper trade, Jewell's theory

In his book, published in 2000, "Ancient Mines of Kitchi-Gummi: Cypriot / Minoan Traders in North America", Roger L. Jewell gives his support to the Minoan discovery of America and their use of the native copper mines in Lake Superior. The name "Kitchi-Gummi" is the the Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) name for Lake Superior

Mainstream scientists agree that the copper was not only used locally but also traded across North America. Some of the metal artifacts were buried in graves, other pieces were lost, and, following the discovery of America, most Native objects were taken (looted, stolen) and melted down for other uses. However, Jewell argues that the natives couldn't have dug 5,000 separate mines 4,500 years ago or consumed the 20 to 50 million pounds (9,000 MT to 22,000 MT) of pure copper that were extracted from these mines.

But, according to Wilband, 1978 the figure is even higer than the one given by Jewell: "500 million pounds to perhaps more than one billion pounds" citing: Drier, R. W., and Du Temple, 1961, Prehistoric copper mining in the Lake Superior region. Published privately by the authors.

Though the figure may seem large, it adds up to 227,000 to 554,000 MT. To grasp it, its volume is roughly 25,000 to 50,000 cubic meters, or 883,000 to 1,766,000 cu. ft. Averaged over, say, 5,000 years of mining it isn't much: 5 m³ or 17.6 cu.ft. of pure copper per year. This was traded across the continent and widely dispersed.

As I haven't bought the book, I will simply summarize the arguments put forward by the author in his book's overview, and on its website, as well as information I came across on online forums. All of them agree, and sound quite serious, but, in fact they don't add up to support the Minoan connection with America.

Overview of the theory

The copper mines are located in the Isle Royal region of Lake Superior in Michigan, USA (Google maps). They were operated by Native Americans who were managed by European people on how to extract the copper. These Europeans then loaded their ships with the copper and sailing east, along the Great Lakes, and the -Saint Lawrence River, crossed the North Atlantic and took the copper to Spain where they smelted it. The copper ingots were then traded across the Mediterranean by Minoans from Crete or merchants based in Cyprus, who sold it to the Egyptians. All of this is said to have taken place around 4000 BC. (perhaps too early in my opinion, regarding the Minoan Culture on Crete.

Dolmens

As evidence, Jewell says these mines in Michingan have been dated to 4000 BC by radiocarbon methods. He adds that European culture can be seen in the region because there are dolmens on the shores of Lake Superior. Dolmens are megalithic (large-stone) structures common in bronze-age Europe 3,000 to 4,000 years BC. A dolmen generally consists of two or more upright slabs supporting a flat slab layed across them. They are table-like structures. Jewell adds that some of these dolmens are inscribed with the word "BAAL", the name of a Semitic god (from Phoenicia and Canaan) —which seems strange if the miners are Minoan or Cypriot! The script used to write the word is Ogham, another oddity because it is much more recent, from the Irish Middle Ages.

Below are some European Dolmens, they are structures that a person can enter, and stand inside. Their appearance is very different from the "dolmen" of Lake Superior pictured futher down, which is resting on some big boulders, not on tall slabs.

European dolmens.

The "dolmen" at Sawbill, Michigan:

Sawbill Dolmen stones near Lake Lujenida. Photo by Gary Meinz. Source

The supposed Dolmen is interesting, but I don't see the need to link it with Minoans. The picture above forms part of an article that states that dolmens "are commonly found in the Eastern United States. It is believed that this dolmen is the only one in Minnesota. The Dolmen measures approximately 4 feet high by 6 feet wide and seems to be oriented to the sunrise at the Summer Solstice. It has been speculated that this Dolmen may have been used to observe planetary/star movements, or as a worship area marking changes in the seasons".

Interesting speculatin, but notice the phrasing "it seems" so it isn't a fact that the boulder points towards the summer solstice. In my opinion is it not man-made, it is an erratic boulder (see this article, with a picture of a similar looking natural dolmen in Austwick, England). Erratic boulders are large stones hewn by glaciers and transported on the ice sheet for hundreds of miles and deposited when the ice melted.

Newberry tablet

Jewell adds further evidence in the shape of the Newberry Tablet (my next post will deal with it), a clay tablet inscribed with "proto-minoan script" and the clay figures knwon as McGruer's God's; all of which were discovered in 1896 along the Tahquamenon River in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. They are said to be the work of Minoans who visited the region.

The Sutton Deed signatures

Jewell also noted that the first English settlers (in fact they lived in Sutton, Massachusetts, which by the way, is very far from Lake Superior) purchased their land from the Native American Algonquian-speakig tribes, who signed the deed in 1681/2 using Basque language symbols (Basques live in Spain, hence the connection Spain-Basques-Cree-Lake Superior). He also points out that a treaty signed in 1727 between English and Native Americans had 32 Cypriot symbols used by the native chiefs as their signatures. The blending of Basques, Cree alphabet, and Cypriot symbols seems complicated and confusing. Below is a summary on how these elements are supposed to support the Minoan-Great Lakes connection.

I found an interesting 46-year-old article (Sutton Historical Society, Sutton, Massachusetts, 1704... and Before That, Bulletin, Vol 6, No. 4, Dec. 1980) that tells this same story, as reported by Barry Fell, an epigraphist in his book published in the late 1970s (America B.C.: Ancient Settlers in the New World).

According to Fell, who uses linguistics to support his wild claims, the Celts of Gaul and the British Isles who used Ogham script, reached New England and left inscriptions in rocks there. Carthaginians travelled with Celts (and also left inscriptions). Phoenicians and Egyptians joined in the trade with America and finally, Basque sailors came too. He left the Minoans out of his theory.

But, let's go back to Sutton, which is linked to Jewell and his copper trade theory. The native Nipmuck Indians, who were Algonquian, used Cree syllabic script, an original alphabet. It seems that in the early 1800s, missionaries learned about the existence of an ancient native "Cree" scripts, and used them to christianize the Indians. One of these missionaries, Rev. James Evans (1801-1846) even printed religious texts using it.

But, this nice story ignores the fact that the Cree didn't have a pre-Columbian writing system. Their symbols appeared after their contact with Europeans. There are two versions about who created the Cree script. One version is that, at first, Reverend Evans tried to use Latin characters to express the native language, but when that failed, he implemented a syllabic script inspired on the symbols used for the Cherokee language (devised by Sequoyah). Evans used special symbols that he designed for the Cree language. The other version differs, and states that the Cree invented the language themselves before the missionaries arrived.

Interestingly, Sequoyah was born in Tennessee, ca. 1770, the son af a white man, Nahtaniel Gist, and a Cherokee woman. His father abandoned them when Sequoyah was a child. He became a silversmith and blacksmith, and was a good artist. He also devised a written alphabet for the Cherokee language which he finished in 1821. He moved to Arkansas in 1818 and in 1828, he explored the lands in Oklahoma that the Federal government would give the Cherokee in exchange for their territories east of the Mississippi. He lived in what is now Sequoyah (a village on Route 66) in Oklahoma and died in in 1843 during an expedition. His is the first and only case of somebody who never learned to read or write and created on his own a new written language. (The image shows Sequoyah. It is a lithograph from the portrait painted by Charles Bird King in 1828. He is pointing at the script he invented).

Going back to the Cree script, the second version, the one involving a Cree myth, says that it was handed down by the spirits to a chief called Calling Badger, a man who returned from death, and wrote the symbols on a scroll of birch bark c.1830. These were then adopted by Evans. Neither story mentions a pre-Columbian origin, or Minoans.

Further reading: See this source for a serious explantion of the development of the Cree script.

Barry Fell, in his explanation of the Sutton deeds, jumps to Spain, and asserts that some inscriptions from Basque stone tablets in Spain, that predated Columbus, were sent to him for study, and he noticed they had lines of symbols identical to the Cree ones. Using the Cree "sounds" or phonemes (as a sillabic language, each Cree symbol is linked to a syllable) for these symbols, the language of the inscriptions turned out to be Basque. So ancient Basque inscriptions had been written in Cree-Algonquian script.

Fell added that the Sutton land deed was signed by natives using two types of alphabets, those native chiefs who had been educated in the New England schools used English (Latin) letters for their names while others used the Cree script (or mamalohikan) which Fell says uses ancient Cypriot alphabet letters, only deciphered in 1871, much later than the land deed.

This version contradicts the "Evans origin" of Cree symbols c.1840, and the Cree myth of Calling Badger inventing it in 1830. The Sutton deeds and the Basque inscriptions are theoretically much older and employed Cypriot characters!

Finally, Fell also noted the 1727 treaty signed at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, Canada had 32 Cypriot symbols. The Cypriot alphabet died out in Europe around the third century BC, during the days of Alexander the Great meaning that it had to reach America before that date.

So, some Canadian Indians used a script invented in Cyprus over 2,300 years ago, while others used one used by Basques prior to 1492. Confusing indeed! Seems scientific, but it hogwash.

The image above, from the Cree Language Grammar book written by John Horden in 1881 clearly states that "The Indians possess no written characters of their own, and their only mode of communicating with each other, except verbally, before they received instruction from European Missionaries, was by means of rude hieroglyphic symbols. They are now In possession of a "syllabic system"." So you can choose, the pro-native version that does not accept that the script was created by the invading "white Europeans" and imposed on an inferior race of natives, or the more politically correct version that the Cree people invented it themselves shortly before the arrival of the missionaries, inspired by their ancestral spirits.

Jewell's arguments, a Summary

Jewell's website (see it on archive.org) provides snippets of the main arguments that according to his book, support the presence of Minoan-Phoenician-Carthaginian-Basque traders in the Great Lakes region:

• The copper mines are far too old. He argues that they dates are "much older than would be expected" ranging from 2470 BC to 1050 BC. Stating that at that time there were "No developed cultures were here to use the copper." These people were hunter-gatherers. I can't imagine why he supposes that the Native Americans were not capable of mining and using native copper, which is almost pure. They used it to make tools, ornaments and traded it with other native groups. No Minoans needed for this.
• Where did all the Copper go? Arguing that it was shipped to Europe and Egypt because "the copper is missing" and can't be found in America. This overlooks the fact that it was traded all the way to Mexico, a lot of it was interred, placed in tombs and graves, and lost. Since corrosion affects copper, some of the artifacts must have disintegrated. Plenty of copper was looted and smelted by European settlers after their arrival in the mid 1500s.
• Scripts and Texts. There is evidence of other scripts like the Newuberry Tablet which is said to be written in "an ancient script known as a Cypriot Minoan Syllabary", and brought to America by "Minoan traders".
• Dolmens and the Stone Chambers. There is a "Stone Chamber" discovered in Putnam County, New York, oriented according to the Winter solstice and another facing the Equinox. Then there is the Sawbill Dolmen in the Superior National Forest supposedly marking the water divide between the Hudson Bay and the St. Lawrence River basins. I have already dealt with the "dolmens" further up. Regarding the Stone Chambers, they deserve a post for themselves: see it here.
• The mtDNA X haplogroup. I have posted about this in the past and discussed it in depth. Jewell says that the Algonquian people carry it because they were in contact with eastern Mediterranean, Spanish, and West European people "thousands of years ago." These people brought the X mtDNA haplogroup to America by sailing across the Atlantic Ocean.

Closing Comments

None of these arguments, support the Minoan trade network assumed by Jewell. One that spanned the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, and also required navigating 1,170 km (730 mi) up the St. Lawrence River skirting rapids, and then continuing 1,750 km (1,100 miles) inland, bypassing Niagara falls, and crossing the Great Lakes and the St. Mary's rapids to reach the copper mines they didn't even know existed when they set out from Europe. Furthermore, for those who'd believe that the natives could have guided the Mionan expeditionaries from the Atlantic seabord to the the Isle Royale mines, I must point out that the French missionaries and explorers who reached the shores of Canada c.1600s saw copper objects but couldn't get the natives to explain or identify their exact source (see Ancient Mining on the Shores of Lake Superior, by Charles Whittlesey, 1862.

The Cree-Basque-Cypriot script link is tenuous at least, and a fantasy if we look at it objectively. The stones inscribed with the word "Baal" sound like nineteenth century forgeries, and I have not (yet) been able to find any formal research papers mentioning them.

In my opinion, if the Minoans visited America, it was a chance event driven by a storm or strong winds, an accidental voyage, and not a systematic and consistent trade route driving copper from America to the Levant. For those interested in the subject, I have mentioned Minoans in some previous posts.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Copper artifacts in prehistoric North America

At school I was taught that the Native Americans used stone tools, and lived as hunter-gatherer groups roaming across America, living in crude tents or makeshift huts. They had learned how to make pottery and rudimentary weaving, but that was all. The advanced Mesoamerican civilzations, and the Incas of South America had a more developed culture, led by kings, they build cities with magnificent stone buildings, pyramids, and carved stone. They had armies, agriculture, irrigation, delicate weaving and some metallurgical skills. They worked gold and silver by beating the metals, and also had some rudimentary smelting know-how for copper and bronze. They never learned about iron.

But this history overlooked the fact that some native groups in North America developed the use of native copper metal, and over thousands of years, these people moved from utilitarian objects (adzes, knives) to delicately decorated artifacts for ceremonial purposes. The "Indians" weren't so brutal and uncivilized as I had been taught.

The Old Copper Complex

Utilitarian copper artifacts at the Milwaukee Museum

The Old Copper Complex, or Culture appeared in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. around 6,000 years ago, during a period known as the Middle Archaic. At that time, they worked native copper (pure copper metal) into utilitarian objects like axes, knives, hooks for fishing, and spear or arrow heads (see photos of tools online: Milwaukee Museum Collection). They continued to do so for thousands of years, developing techniques to extract the almost pure copper metal nuggets from the soil and bedrock.

Roughly 2500 years ago, their culture shifted, and these people started making decorative (probably religious) artifacts and jewelry. (Source).

Thousands of objects have been discovered and are held in private and public collections. Many more were looted and melted down by the newcomer Europeans after the discovery of America.

As mentioned in previous posts, the American scholars of the 1800s didn't believe that the "Indians" were capable of working metals, or crafting the objects that they were finding in mounds and burials. They believed, with their racist mindset, that the natives were far too primitive to have developed this type of material culture. The scientists imagined a lost civilization of advanced mound-builders, or that advanced people from Eurasia (Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans, Vikings, etc.) made their way across the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, and upstream along the St. Lawrence River, deep into the Great Lakes, to source copper and in the process, teach the natives how to work the metal. Clearly absurd considering the logistics involved, and the nature of their ships. It was fine to bring tin from Cornwall, in the southwestern tip of Britain, across the English Channel, but to cross the ocean with tons of copper was risky, and impractical.)

So, none of that was true. The ancient Amerindians learned how to work the nuggets of pure copper all by themselves.

In the mid 1900s, better tools allowed the dating by radiocarbon of copper finds, and we learned that some of them were very ancient, and indigenous to the New World.

The Copper

The Amerindian people used native copper, a rare and very pure (95% purity) grade of metallic copper. It appears as nuggets, with the typical red color of copper (see picture above). For this reason it was easily found, and used. Current copper mines used low purity, highly oxidized mineral, that requires complex mechanical and chemical processing of thousands of tons of ore, to obtain a few hundred pounds of pure metal.

The Great Lakes area is one of the few regions in the world, where native copper is found. The activity of glaciers also bulldozed the ore, spreading copper across the surface. The natives also dug mines to extract native copper. They used stone hammers, and also heating and cooling cycles to break the rock apart (light a fire, and cool the rock suddenly with cold water).

The copper nuggets were then processed. The North American natives had not learned how to smelt copper, or blend it with tin to make bronze. They used cold techniques to work the metal: they hammered it into shape. Another process they used was to heat it to make it more malleable, a process known as annealing (at 800°C, - 1470°F it softens but does not melt the copper).

They embossed, perforated, engraved, and also riveted the objects that they crafted (Source), copper trade carried the metal from the Great Lakes across the continent, even 1,500 km (900 mi) south of the Great Lakes (Source).

Below are two images of some of the Wulfing copper objects, unearthed in a farm in Malden, Missouri, in the late 1800s. They date to around 1200-1400 AD. (Source) they are named after the collector who donated them to the Museum; they are good examples of the artistry achieved by the native metalworkers.

The following image is the "falcon", that was excavated at the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park (Source):

These were delicate, carefully crafted objects, made by skilled artisans. They show us an alternative reality about the Native Americans. People who had sophisticated societies, religion, and also an organization that supported trade, mining, and craftsmen capable of working the copper metal. They weren't only people that hunted buffalo and lived in teepees. Amerindians thousands of years ago, lived in complex societies, like the mound-builders, in urban-agricultural settings, producing ceramics and beautiful objects like those depicted above.

There is no need to concoct a pre-Clovis civilization like the one proposed by Graham Hancock, the natives themselves developed their own civilization starting from scratch.

An example of their elaborate culture can be seen at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Cahookia, just east of St. Louis, in Southern Illinois, it has mounds that are over 30 m (100 ft) tall, and had a population of 10,000 to 40,000 residents. This required an advanced agricultural and social organization. I wrote about them in my Route 66 website because the site is located right beside on of U.S. 66's alignments. Below you can see what we think they looked like in AD 1,100.

Decline and Collapse

But, shortly after, the mound-culture vanished. Starting in 1200 AD, weather changed, a cycle of drought and floods hit the region. It was followed by a Little Ice Age. The large semi-urban populations that depended on agriculture suffered the effects. Famine, social unrest, environmental degradation led to a gradual depopulating of these towns. By the early and mid 1500s, few of them remained.

These final days of these mound villages were mentioned by the ruthless Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1540, when he rode from Florida across the Southeastern USA and along the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. de Soto attacked the natives, killing many, maiming and torturing captives, a brutal man of his time. He mentions some of these fortified cities (Coosa, Mabila, Cofitachequi). This expedition more or less coincides with the final stage of decline and destruction of these cities which was probably promoted by the Old World diseases introduced by the Europeans, (smallpox, measles, flu...) which led to the "Great Dying" that exterminated 90% of the Amerindian population starting in 1492.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

More on the Patagonian Labrys, Phoenicians and Cretans

Getting back to my pervious post on the "Chelelon" or "Opposing triangle" shapes found in Patagonian rock art, and a possible link with Mediterranean cultures of ca. 1.500 BC., I have done some additional reading and can shed some light on some of the questions left unanswered in that post:

In the closing comments of that post I hinted "tongue in cheek" that:

"We could argue that the Cretan sailors reached Patagonia and smelted tin or copper and took it back to Crete in ingots shaped as Labyris, and that the Tehuelche natives imitated them and fashioned their own stone axes. Or that they saw the powerful religious connotations of the Cretan Labyris and adopted it as their own. But that is probably unlikely."

But I did not know then that the Cretans actually did smelt ingots that had a very odd shape! (in a Previous post, I mentioned that they came to Patagonia seeking copper) so it may possible that they had some influence on the native Patagonians. But first lets get back to the "labrys shape" and what my research found:

Patagonian tattoos

The Phoenicians according to Lucian of Samosata [1] tattooed themselves, and they represented these tattoos on their statues (such as the colossus at the Phoenician settlement of Amathus in Cyprus, which has “Tattoo marks on its arms” [2]

But what kind of evidence is this anyway, most human groups from different parts of the world tattoo themselves too!

George C. Musters, an English sailor and explorer who rode from Punta Arenas to Carmen de Patagones, with a band of Aonikenk Tehuelche natives in 1869/70, recorded first hand their customs and activities. He wrote about their tattoos too:

"Both men and women tattoo their forearms... the usual designs consist in a series of parallel lines and sometimes a single or double triangle, the upper one leaning on the apex of the lower one"

What Musters is describing is the opposed triangles motive or Chelelon design! [3]

They were done with blue clay or powered charcoal. He added that in the past the designs were more complex and were applied on the body and the face. He let them tattoo him.

What does this "double triangle" mean anyway? Why would they also tattoo themselves with it?

The Key to the Afterlife

Apparently a femenine goddess of the Tehuelches, whose name is written "Seécho, Sésom, was known as the " Old Woman of Heaven", nicknamed Karunon (which means hag).

She "Looks at the arm... she recevies the dead and examines that their wrists bear the Sháin (tattoo) and throws those who dont, into the sea.". The natives really feared her. [4]

This was also recorded by the Italo-Argentine scientist and explorer Clemente Onelli towards the end of the 1890s:

"They all have on their left arm small tattoos that, as an indian friend told me, are some kind of baptism to be able to enter the outwordly lands; the indian who does not have those hieratical signs marked on him is not allowed into heaven and if close to a river, his [body] is thrown into the water" [5]

A similar belief was held by the North American Sioux who believed that a warrior without tattoos would be turned away from the lodges of the afterlife, and wander the earth as a ghost.[7] Could this Trans-American myth have a common origin in the Paleoindians who peopled America ca. 30 kya? Or did they arise as separate myths?.

The Double cups

My previous post also mentioned "double cups" like two cones joined at their vertex with a shallow concave base.

They baffled me so I decided to read some more about the Tehuelche. They did not use glasses or chalice shaped cups, these artifacts serve another purpose:

They were Anvils. Here is the explanation:

Musters mentions that the Tehuelche jewels (except for the beads) "are home made: they make them by hammering coins that they obtain by trading with the colonies" (the Spanish outposts in Southern and Northern Patagonia or the Welsh one at Trelew, Chubut). [3]

Chilean author Mateo Martinic [6] goes into details on their metal working techniques:

"Anvils:, new handicraft activities arose, especially in working pieces of metal (bronze, copper) in which the natives besides using the elements that they acquired by barter (the most usual) they also used combined with tools belonging to their own culture, that is, stone anvils, adapted to making certain semi-spherical shapes... So that in some types of anvils were chipped to create small rounded cavities which were then used to make metal bowls." [6]

So this settles the mystery of the "double cups" they were anvils used by the natives to hammer coins into different jewels. Their concave bases were not designed to hold drinks but to shape the metal.

Oxhide ingots

For those longing for some Cretan or Phoenician link, other than Samosata's reference in the beginning of this post, there is a certain resemblance between the shape of the "Tehuelche axes" an the "oxhide ingots".

Oxhide ingots are metal slabs mostly made from smelting copper (though some are made from tin). They were manufactured and widely distributed during the Mediterranean Late Bronze Age (LBA).

Their shape resembles the hide of an ox, in which the "legs" are a protruding handle at each of the ingot’s four corners. These made it easier to carry the ingots on the backs of pack animals.

They have been found in Turkey, Cryprus, Crete, Sardinia, Sicily, Egypt and Bulgaria. The photo below depicts one:

Oxhide shaped ingot

The British Museum has more information on these ingots, and has a photo captioned "Copper Oxhide ingot from the Foundry Hoard, inscribed with a maker’s mark or Cypro-Minoan sign at one end (around 1200 BC-1050 BC)." So the Minoans made these ingots too.

Sources

[1] The Syrian Goddess De Dea Syria, by Lucian of Samosata by Herbert A. Strong and John Garstang [1913].
[2] Perrot and Chipiez, Phoenicia and its Dependencies, p. 165. Fig. 110
[3] Musters George, At Home with the Patagonians, Ed. Continente, B. Aires. 2007. pp. 158 and 159
[4] Alejandra Siffredi, Hierofanías y concepciones mítico-religiosas de los Tehuelches meridionales, Runa : archivo para las ciencias del hombre, 1969-1970, vol. 12, p. 247-271.
[5] Clemente Onelli, (1904)Trepando los Andes pp. 156.
[6] Mateo Martinic Beros, (1995) Los Aonikenk: Historia y cultura, pp. 99 and 214
[7] Faith Hickman Brynia 101 Questions about Your Skin that Got Under Your Skin ... Until Now pp. 142

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2013 by Austin Whittall © 

Chelelon, the “hourglass”, “Labyris” or “double ax” symbol in Patagonia

I was looking at some drawings traced from the rocks at some Patagonian rock art sites in Comallo, Río Negro province, Argentina, published in a book by Teresa Boschin [1], and was surprised by the “ape-like” appearance of the “men” and the strange shapes of their clothing (?) or bodies (?). (see image below). Could they be Neandertals or Homo erectus?

Intrigued, I read on, and got to the interpretation given by Boschin. The outcome is this post, which does not deal with primitive hominids but with some strange rock art and stone implements found in Patagonia.

Images traced from the Comallo rock shelters. From [1].

The strange men drawn at Comallo

The first thing that drew my attention were the ears, round, bear-like, mouse-like or even monkey-like (as can be seen in the top row of the drawing above –excluding fig. 185- , and in the second row in fig. 177, as well as fig. 242 in the third row).

The second thing were the “pot bellies” as can be seen again, in all figures of the first row, and, again, excluding the odd drawing depicted in fig. 185. In the second row it appears in figs. 177, 184 and 200 and again in fig. 241 in the third row.

What could they be? Pregnant women? Pot-bellied men? Persons wearing a blanket wrapped around their waist? What are these strange shapes?

Teresa Boschin, the author interprets them as follows:

• Figures 200 (row 2) and 241 (row 3) carry an “ax” (the double triangle shaped thing across their chests –more on this below.
• Seven of these figures are “examples of regional micro-identities” (meaning perhaps local dress or body paintings that are distinct from other regions) and these are all the figures that I noticed had the strange ears!, they are not ears but, according to Boschin some kind of earrings. Fig. 75 on the last row has a chest armour and a Tembetá or “lip plate”, to stretch the lower lip outwards
• Fifteen of them have a clear identification of their gender (look between their legs).
• Several have symbols that identify their “clans”: three toes of fingers (the Rhea or South American ostrich clan), snake, step-shaped garments and tatoo designs (figs 176 and 241). A head-dress with feathers (see bottom row figs. 108, 110), two leather capes (fig. 232 row three). Boleadoras (fig. 161 and 176 on the top row and fig. 75 on the bottom row) – the two pink or red round shaped things around the person’s waist). A combat armour and a cape (fig. 107 and 108, last row), and a one-armed person (fig. 161 top row).

My comments on Boschin’s interpretation

Boleadoras: The name boleadora derives from the Spanish word ‘bola’ (ball); they were stones balls sheathed with leather and attached to strong tendon straps that were whirled above the head of the hunter to gain momentum and then thrown so as to entangle around the hunted animal’s legs.

The problem is the size: the ´bolas’ were not as big as shown in the rock art. Even the largest stones were not bigger than a tennis ball. They were worn hanging from the waist, and in most photographs and engravings showing Tehuelche natives you never see the boleadoras. However, I did find one which shows a native riding a horse with his bolas strung around the waist as can be seen below (engraving from George Muster’s ride along Patagonia in 1870): [2]

Patagonian hunting, notice the boleadoras in his hand and slung on his waist.

Regarding earrings, in all the images (photos, paintings, etc) that I have seen, not one single Patagonian native man is shown wearing earrings of any kind. Women seldom appear wearing earrings, and if they do, they are tiny.

As an example, below is a photograph of a Tehuelche native Casimiro Biguá and his male relatives, at Carmen de Patagones fort in 1865. Notice: no earrings or boleadoras:

Casimiro Biguá and relatives, Patagones in 1865. No earrings or boleadoras.

The Axes

Boschin associates this rock art with Elumgássum, which she says is the mythical creator of the Tehuelche people. She points out that this particular rock art at Comallo introduces some stylistic changes: “that prioritize Elumgássum displaying a variety and quantity of axes...”[1]

For more on this Patagonian monster, see our posts on Elumgássum or Ellengassen.

Regarding the Axes, I have posted about Ellengassen’s hand ax postulating that it is the hand ax of some primitive hominid.

But this time I decided to take a deeper look into the matter and the odd shaped axes that Boschin mentions.

Looking at the rock art drawings, you will notice the ones she says carry an ax across their chests, it is a figure which she describes as follows “Chelelon are two triangles linked at the vertex [1] Surprisingly she does not go into the etimology of the word “Chelelon”, which I did, and found quite enlightening, but first lets look into these “double headed axes”.

The Minoan connection

The Palace of Knossos lies on the island of Crete, on the Eastern tip of the Mediterranean Sea. This complex at Knossos was built around 1,900 BC and was permanently occupied until around 1,200 BC when the site was destroyed by fire.

In one of the Palace’s rooms, an image of a double headed ax is cruedely engraved on the walls of the light well at the west end. The room received its current name as "The Hall of the Double Axes" due to this symbol. [3]

This is not at all strange since the Labyris or double headed ax was a very important symbol in the Minoan religion (something akin to the cross for Chrisitanity). [4] In Crete it was carved, painted, engraved and depicted in ceramics, frescoes and even cast in metal.

Labyris or double ax

The Labyris is a very ancient symbol (the word is of Lydian origin), and found in many places around in Europe and the Middle East:

• Baring and Cashford describe it at the Paleolithic cave at Niaux, in Southeastern France [6]
• E. O. James dates it as a religious symbol from the Fifth millenia BC and M. Eliade has the ax as part of religious rites at Tell Arpachiyah (of the Assyrian Tell Halaf culture), where it was found close to a naked goddess. In other parts of the Middle East it is a symbol of the “Mother Goddess” [7]
• A Summerian text of the Third millennium BC mentions a sacred wedding which included the “Double headed ax ...” [8]
• Even Afrodite (heir of the Cretan Mother Goddess) appears with the double ax symbol in the Afrodisia coinage [9]

Apparently the word for Labyrinth -the home of mythical Minotaur- derives from the word for double ax (Labyris) and meant “Home of the Double Ax”.

Its meaning

What does the double ax symbolize? Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas believed that the symbol predated metal axes by several millenia and that it represented a stylized Goddess of regeneration and death, with a hourglass shaped body and which was symbolized with a butterfly (because the various stages of its life cycle represent the cycle of life, death and rebirth).[5]

In my opinion Gimbutas seems to have been right (More on butterflies towards the end of this post). However, axes can be fashioned in stone, as we will see was the Patagonian case.

Furthermore the word labrys may derive from labia (with evident sexual and fecundity – Mother Goddess connotations).[5] Interstingly the double ax is depicted as held by women. It is never depicted as held by men. And, as an example of this: the Greeks would have Hercules steal Hyppolite's labryis, she was the queen of the Amazons.

Could Comallo cave rock art depict women? Hence the earrings?

Others interpret the symbol differently: Sir Arthur John Evans (1851 – 1941) the archaeologist who discovered the Palace of Knossos believed that the figure was a symbol of the union of complementary principles: the femenine and the masculine. Yet another interpretation is that it is the ax with which the Cretan bulls were sacrificed.

The Patagonian double headed axes

This takes us back to Boschin and her Labyris shaped axes. There are quite a few examples of these axes in Argentine museums. They are all fashioned in stone (well, the native Tehuelche did not work metals, so they had to use stone):

Some stone axes found at different sites of Patagonia and Northern Argentina. From [10].

In 1903 Juan Ambrosetti wrote a paper about these “Great Patagonian Ceremonial Axes”, and mentions that some were found in burial cairns along the Chubut River valley, and one was found at Punta Ninfas, Chubut, on the sea coast. All of them in Patagonia. On average they were 30 cm (one foot) long and a few centimeters thick (less than 1 inch).

He also mentions one tiny 8.5 cm (3.3 in.) ax that was given to him in Northwestern Argentina, at Molinos, Salta province (see above on the right). This is interesting since it may point at some type of cultural or religious influence that spanned the Andean and Patagonian part of America.

Most were carved out of basaltic rock (lava is quite frequent in Patagonia), and some were cracked in half at their narrowest part, due to manhandling when being dug out of the cairns.

Below is another of these axes, which belonged to a Tehuelche Chief named Foyel.

Foyel’s ax, From: [11]

It was given by Foyel to an Argentine General, Liborio Bernal as a peace token, when the native troops he commanded surrendered to the Argentine authorities in 1883. It remained in the General’s family until his great grandchildren donated it to the Emma Nozzi Museum of Carmen de Patagones in 2009. The basaltic rock ax still is about 20 cm ling has some red paint marks on it. It symbolized Foyel’s authority (like a crown or a sceptre symbolize royal authority in Europe).[11]

More axes can be seen below, (A) is similar to the one shown above and is from the Gaiman Museum, Chubut. The ones shown in (B) are from Leleque’s Museum (Chubut), these two axes are “squarer”. And, from the Bariloche Museum, Río Negro we can see the common every-day ax, used for chopping, which has a more practical ax-like shape (C), and is therefore totally different to the “Ceremonial axes”.

Some more Patagonian axes.

The paintings: Rock Art

This symbol (the triangles linked at their vertexes) also appears in rock art, clearly depicted on their own, and not stuck on the chests of people as in Boschin’s Comallo cave paintings.

Hourglass shaped painting, in red, at the Alerces National Park, Chubut.

Curtoni [12] who analysed the different symbols painted across Patagonia, calls it a Clepsydra, or water clock (maybe meaning an hourglass, due to its shape, which would be a sand clock not a water one). In any case he finds it depicted in paintings in the provinces of Buenos Aires (Tandilia and Ventania sites), La Pampa, Neuquén, Mendoza and San Luis, which was the area where the Northern Patagonian Tehuelches lived until the arrival of the Spaniards.

Its symbolic value is powerful since it also appears on other artifacts, not only painted on rocks [12]:

Notice the engraved shapes on the upper part of the object. From [12]

A Universal symbol

However the hourglass symbol is quite common, and it appears in rock art around the world. Some examples below:

Navajo Petroglyphs in New Mexico, USA [14]

Tuareg art in Northern Africa, Sahara.

It maybe meant different things to different people. It is a simple symbol, easy to draw. Rock art depictions can be interpreted to mean anything (like Boschin construing axes out of triangular shaped drawings).

But let’s get back to the stone axes:

Double cups

An interesting blog [13] by Gustavo Rubino Begner on Patagonian geoglyphs mentions a “Double Cup” which he says “is a symbol of being able to receive and keep the energy generated by the ceremony, and, if double amplifies it”.

Since the original text is in Spanish, I will quote in full:

Focusing on the central space that the overlapping and intersections create, we obtain an image which is similar to a double cup also called "ambilateral".
The same shape can be found in the rock art and petroglyphs in Patagonia, sometimes more or less outlined, to the point that it is drawn with straight lines. It is compared to the shape of a sand clock or a (number) eight. In Chubut several cups of this type have been found, generally of stone. The ritual cup symbolizes the power to receive and contain the energy that is generated within the ceremony. If it is double, there is an amplification in two dimensions or directions, external and internal

Indepentendly of Gustavo Rubin Begner's interpretation, I am not sure what these "cups" are, I am currently researching on them.

As you can see, they are quite different from the axes which are basically "flat", the "cups" look like two cones joined at their apex. Since they seem quite shallow it is unlikely that they served as drinking cups. What can they be?

“Double Cups” and an ax. See details below: Top and Right images are from [13]

The upper left image is a double-cup found on the Senguerr River, Chubut, Patagonia. On the Right, Double Cups also from Chubut. The lower left image is a decorated ceremonial ax printed on an Argentine stamp [15].

Chelelon or the opposed triangles are actually Butterflies

So now we go all the way back to the beginning of this post, where Boschin calls these axes by their native name “Chelelon” but did not say what it meant.

She shows how they could be combined and repeatedly superimposed:

Combined Chelelons at Loncoman site. From [1]

This image is important: those are not axes stacked one upon the other, they are something totally different: butterflies. I have seen butterflies gathered in a humid shady spot, they are symbols of fertility, spring, balmy weather and as can be seen below, can pile up together:

Butterflies grouped together. Photo: A. Whittall. Copyright © 2013 by Austin Whittall

In fact, that is what the word Chelelon means! [16] in Tehuelche language: Butterfly. Not triangle or Ax, just butterfly:

Entry for Chelelon in the Tehuelche Dictionary [16]

A Patagonian historian, Mario Echeverría Baleta describes the painted capes crafted by the Tehuelche natives or Kai Ajnun. They were made out of Guanaco Lama guanicoe hides (they were the staple food of the Tehuelche, who used their hides for clothing and building the tents in which they lived in).

The native Tehuelche wore their hides with the fur towards the inside to keep warm and also to keeping burrs and branches from sticking to the hairs, the bare leather was tanned and painted with different motifs, such as the Chelelon, one of which is shown below.[17] Echeverría Baleta also states that they represent butterfly wings:

Chelelon motif, from [17].

Closing comments

The hourglass paintings on the guanaco capes and on the cave walls are butterflies not axes. They may symbolize family clans or even fertility. More research needed.

Humans have a limited repertoire of images and symbols (stars, crosses, dots and... hourglass shapes), and repeat them across space and time. The meanings are surely different, the symbol is the same one.

We could argue that the Cretan sailors reached Patagonia and smelted tin or copper and took it back to Crete in ingots shaped as Labyris, and that the Tehuelche natives imitated them and fashioned their own stone axes. Or that they saw the powerful religious connotations of the Cretan Labyris and adopted it as their own. But that is probably unlikely.

By the way there are many coincidences between Patagonian and Cretan myths.

They did make stone axes with two heads, and that is interesting and worth investigating. Why a double headed axe?

Then there are the “Double cups” which in my opinion are not cups and have no relation with the axes or the hourglass “Chelelon”

Sources

[1] María Teresa Boschin, 2009. Tierra de hechiceros arte indígena de Patagonia septentrional Argentina, Univ. De Salamanca.

[2] Musters, G., (2007). Vida entre los Patagones: un ano de excursiones desde el estrecho de Magallanes hasta el rio Negro: 1869-1870. B. Aires: Continente-Pax.

[3] Knossos Palace

[4] Symbols of the Minoan Goddess Religion

[5]Vicki Noble, The Double Goddess: Women Sharing Power.

[6] A.Baring & J.Cashford, 2005. El mito de la Diosa, Ed. Siruela. pp. 140

[7] E. O. James, Antichi dei mediterranei, Ed. EST, pp. 167
Mircea Eliade, 2006, Storia delle credenze e delle idee Religiose. Ed. BUR, pp. 152.

[8] Daniel Reisman, 1973, Iddin-Dagan's Sacred Marriage. Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 25, N. 4, 1973: 187

[9] Paule Faure, Fonctions des cavernes crétoises pp. 157

10] Ambrosetti, Juan B.,1903, Arqueología Argentina. - Las grandes hachas ceremoniales de Patagonia ( probablemente Pillan Tokis). 10 de Marzo de 1903. Anales Del Museo Nacional de Buenos Aires. Vol. ser 3 Tom.2.

[11] Julio Esteban Vezub , La vida social de las cosas y los artefactos-documentos del Museo de Carmen de Patagones CORPUS - Archivos virtuales de la alteridad americana http://ppct.caicyt.gov.ar/index.php/corpus/article/view/1438/1440

[12] Rafael Pedro Curtoni , 2006 Expresiones Simbólicas, Cosmovisión y Territorialidad en los Cazadores Recolectores Pampanos. Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología XXXI, Buenos Aires. pp133

[13] Geoglifosenlapatagoia.blogspot by Gustavo Rubino Begner

[14] Alex Patterson (Comp.), 1992. A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest , Big Earth Publishing.

[15] Díaz, José Fernández , 1984. Catálogo 2a exp Las Culturas de América en la Época del descubrimiento. 137pp. Madrid

[16] Ramon Lista, 1894, Los Indios Tehuelches, Una Raza Que Desaparece

[17] Mario Echeverría Baleta, Kai Ajnun - El milenario arte tehuelche de los quillangos pintados

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2013 by Austin Whittall ©