Thursday, April 2, 2020

4/2/20 Report - Juana and Carlos Pillars and Waves Find. Tree of Life. Bottle Stopper. Assumptions and Uncertainty.


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

Cleaned Early Pillars and Waves Cob Found by Terry S.
Photo by Terry S.
You might remember this find.  We saw it before it was cleaned.

Found by Terry S., we wondered if it might be the earliest coin found on the Treasure Coast, and concluded that if not, it was certainly among the earliest.  These coins were not dated and even with the assayer mark it is difficult to put a specific date on them.

Terry had West Bay Trading Company clean it for him.  We can now see good detail.  To the left of the shield is the M for the Mexico mint, and to the right of the shield is the assayer mark, "G."

Here is the other side of the same coin.

Mexico Two-Real After Cleaning
Find and photo by Terry S.
Recently I showed illustrations of other coins from the reign of Juana and Carlos.

On this side of Terry's cob, you can see the two dots between the pillars, indicating that it is a two-reale.  This coin looks most similar to type 69 (p. 27) in the Calico, Calico, and Trigo book that I often cite.  That book presents 11 varieties (or types) of Juana and Carlos Mexico two-reales, including those marked with assayer's marks of R, G, F, P, A, S, L and O.

Experts agree with what I see in the Calico book and date it to around 1940 - 1948.

Great detail on a very early coin and a great find by Terry S.

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Source: LiveScience.com.  See link below.

A towering ponderosa pine discovered in the center of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, known as the "Plaza Tree," was once thought to symbolize life and the center of the world for an ancient pueblo town. But new research suggests it may have been just a giant log no one bothered to move for 800 years, and maybe didn't hold significant meaning...

For over a hundred years, people assumed the tree had meaning; it was regarded as a "tree of life" according to one researcher, or a "world tree." The solitary tree was once thought to represent the living "center of the world" for the people of Pueblo Bonito, the largest of Chaco Canyon's "great houses," which was occupied between A.D. 850 and 1150. Some speculations placed the tree at the center of a religious cult, and an illustration of a growing "Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito" appears in a brochure from the National Park Service...

Eventually fantasy gives way to good sense.

"I actually have no idea whether it did, does, or ever had religious significance," Guiterman told Live Science in an email. "I don't know what it was used for, or why it was located in the plaza where it was found."...


That is refreshing.
Here is the link for more about that story.
https://www.livescience.com/chaco-canyon-famous-tree-of-life-mystery.html


I've mentioned before that when they can't identify the use of an object, archaeologists seem to interpret the object as having some religious significance or being a toy.   Its fun to think about things like that, but when you don't know, just say so, or at least make it clear that you are just guessing.

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I took a little walk the other day.  Didn't see a single person, so was suitably socially distanced and found this little object.  It looks like a bottle stopper, but has "57" on the top.



It is a about the diameter of a half dollar.  I think it might be for a Heinz 57 product.  I found a photo of one for sale listed as a Heinz 57 bottle stopper, but I don't know the age, product or type of bottle it goes with.

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Yesterday I posted a list of beach closings.  William K. sent this addition.

Read your guide today. I live in Indian Harbour Beach and the beaches are not closed here. The access parking lots to the public beaches in Satelite Beach, Melbourne Beach etc. have been barricaded, but you can park nearby and walk to the beach. This past weekend "they" closed the beaches for the weekend only from 11:00-16:00.

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The most entertaining and informative things I saw all week was when Fauci and Birx stumbled around trying to present and explain their graphs/models to the press. 

We are very much accustomed to watching the hurricane models every year and are very familiar 
with the cone of uncertainty.  We know how inexact (wrong) the models can be, and the meteorologists and public has learned the huge cost, psychological/social and otherwise, that can result.   

The equivalent of the cone of uncertainty on the epidemiological model that they presented ( I think it is referred to as the Imperial model) was huge.  Nobody pointed that out.  

They didn't bring those models and graphs back to the last briefing.  I'd be surprised if we see them again.  They raised more questions in the briefing than they answered.  It forced them to defend the unproven assumptions and arbitrariness of the model they selected.  Birx admitted to the public their model was skewed by the abundance of New York data, which is the most extreme and atypical case.  Admitting that the data is skewed wasn't the bad thing.  The bad thing was that they did not make clear why they chose what appears to be one of the most extreme models and they did not explain their assumptions and the degree of uncertainty involved.  Nonetheless, their stumbling attempt to present it all to the public was a good thing.  I'm sure they will learn from it, as we all have learned from the hurricane models we watch every year.

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I very much enjoy epistemology and studying models and looking data, and the assumptions and levels of uncertainty.  It is very much the same in meteorology and epidemiology.  Investigating the underlying processes is the fun of it to me.  It is the same with treasure hunting.  It is about problem solving and creativity.   At the center of it all are the same philosophical and psychological questions.

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The other day I mentioned something like, asking Dr. Fauci if he would need more data would be like asking a car salesman if you should buy a new car.   But there is one time a car salesman will not say you should buy a new car.  …   When he is selling used cars.
   

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It looks like the surf predictions for Sunday will be a foot or so smaller than previously predicted.

Happy hunting (whether it is in the search for knowledge or objects - same thing),
TreasureGuide@comcast.net