Wednesday, June 28, 2017

6/28/17 Report - Personal Metal Detecting Firsts. Effigy or Pendant? Big Canoe. Surprising Carving Tools.


Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Found at Douglas Beach About 15 Years Ago.
Find and photo by Darrel S.


Here is what Darrel said about the above find. At first I thought a pendant with the top part worn from time. A friend, who wrote a book on Taino, thought possibly an effigy, etc.  It is about 2.5 inches. The material is steathite, which was used making celts, etc. Definitely, material not from Florida. I still think it is a pendant and the grooved ring was worn over time. 

I really like that piece, especially how you can see the different layers.

Thanks for sharing Darrel.

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BELCHER, LA -- Excavation efforts have unearthed a large, prehistoric Indian canoe along the Red River in north Caddo Parish.

One archaeologist said the almost 34-foot-long dugout canoe, described it in very good condition even though one side is missing. The canoe, weighing an estimated 1,000 pounds, could be the largest ever found intact in North America...

Here is the link for more about that.



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11,000 Year-Old Statue
Source: See link below.

New scientific findings suggest that images and hieroglyphics on the wooden statue were carved with the jaw of a beaver, its teeth intact.
Originally dug out of a peat bog by gold miners in the Ural Mountains in 1890, the remarkable seven-faced Idol is now on display in a glass sarcophagus in a museum in Yekaterinburg.
Two years ago German scientists dated the Idol as being 11,000 years old...

Here is the link.


To me, that is absolutely one beautiful statue.  And the idea of using beaver teeth to carve makes so much sense -  I love it!

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I was thinking of my personal metal detecting firsts.  Some came readily to mind even though they happened a long time ago.  Some I could remember like it was yesterday, and some are things that I would barely pay attention to if I found them today. Still they made an impression at the time.   I'll try to put them in chronological order as well as I can.

My first ring.  It was a silver skull ring.  Nothing that I consider special in any way today.
My first Rolex watch.
My first multi-carat solitaire diamond ring.
My first national championship sports ring.
My first escudo.
My first piece of shipwreck silver.
My first gold shipwreck artifact.
My first raw gold nugget from a treasure wreck beach.

Looking at the list, there are a couple of things that might seem a little surprising.  For one thing, I found an escudo before I found a reale.

Another thing that seems a little odd to me is that I have no idea which was my first gold ring find.  It doesn't stick out in my memory for some reason.

The diamond solitaire ring find sticks out in my mind because it was such a vivid sensory experience. It was blue sky day with a very calm clear surf.  What I remember is seeing the diamond reflecting the sunlight as soon as it emerged from the sand even though it was under about three feet of water when that happened.

Unlike that one, which made a real impression as soon as I saw it shining under the water, there were other items that I didn't appreciate until after I did the research and found out what they really were. Sometimes that was a long time later.  Those I not sure of when they were found because I didn't appreciate them right away.

It is not surprising that most of the modern finds came first.  I lived in South Florida and was focusing on modern jewelry before moving to the Treasure Coast.

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There is no tropical weather to watch right now.

The surf is still calm and we still are having some nice tides.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net