12/17/18 Report - The Daring Shipwreck. Colored Crayons. Snakes and Snake Heads. Interpretation of Symbols and Artifacts.

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

Gold Snake Ring With Diamond Eyes.

The New Zealand shipwreck given up from its sandy grave after 153 years has rolled away on the back of a truck.

The timber hull of the 17m-long sailing vessel, the Daring, whose shroud of sand was wiped away by wind and tide, has this week been transported from its 1865 resting place.

A coastal trader under the control of Captain Phipps, the Daring went aground at Kaipara Harbour's South Head, northwest of Muriwai in a February storm. Efforts to re-launch the vessel in the surf during the following weeks were unsuccessful and the it was claimed by the beach...

Here is the link for more about that.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12177142

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A 50.000-year-old colored pencil or crayon?

The pre-historic artists were not Homo sapiens but Denisovans - a long-extinct branch of ancient man - or possibly Neanderthals, another vanished sub-species, believe scientists. 

The crayon was used to make reddish brown marks. 

It was found in a layer of the world famous Denisova Cave this summer...

Here is the link.

https://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/ancient-coloured-pencil-up-to-50000-years-old-found-in-siberia/

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8300-year-old carved snake heads?


What might be passed over as two oddly shaped rocks are the work of Stone Age artisans who sculpted the rocks into beady-eyed snake heads, archaeologists have found.

It's a mystery why these ancient people, who lived in what is now Ukraine, created the stoney serpents, but the researchers have a good guess.

"These sculptures could have ritual purpose," said study lead researcher Nadiia Kotova, an archaeologist in the Department of the Eneolithic and Bronze Age at the Institute of Archaeology National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of Ukraine. "They were probably used during ceremonies...

And here is that link.

https://www.livescience.com/64284-stone-age-snake-sculptures.html

When it is difficult to find out what an item is or what it was actually used for, it often gets thrown into the category of gaming or religious.  That is easy enough, but I think those categories are over used.

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If you've found many rings, you've probably found some snake rings.  They are about as common as the lion head rings.

At the top of the post is one snake ring that I found and posted back a number of years ago.  (My photography wasn't as good back then.)

The snake is a common and basic symbol that is about as old as man.  You all know the creation story in which the snake plays a large roll.  Any attempt to place a snake image in either a time or  culture can be difficult.  Like many other basic symbols, it is simply too common.  I'm tempted to say universal.

The same goes for the cross.  The cross has a special meaning in Christianity, but it is not unique to Christianity.  If you read Carl Jung you'll learn that the mandala ( which has a cross form ) is a very basic symbol that crosses cultures and historical periods.  To put a cross into a particular time period of culture you have to depend upon additional features or elaborations than the basic cross form itself.

Anyone who attempts to interpret artifacts will be benefited by the writings of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell.

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That reminds me of the stone snake of Eldorado Canyon, which I once wrote about in this blog some years ago.  I've told that story many times, including on a radio program.  I think it is a good lesson.

See https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2013/12/121513-report-obstacles-believing-and.html

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The tides on the Treasure Coast are not big now, and there won't be much surf for at least a few days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/15/16 Report - Tomb of Spanish Priest in Aztec Temple. Treasure Hunting As Hero's Journey. Big Surf Monday?

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

Source: See link below.

The first thing I want to point out today is the predicted big surf, The prediction right now is for a peak surf of 6 - 9 feet on Monday.

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Archaeologists have found a heavy stone slab covering the tomb of one of the first Catholic priests in Mexico following the 1521 Spanish conquest, a grave sunk into the floor of what appears to be an Aztec temple.

The discovery suggests the extent to which the Spanish reused the temples of the Aztec capital in the first years after capturing it. The huge slab was uncovered in recent days at the site of the now-disappeared first cathedral of Mexico City, built in 1524 yards from the current cathedral that replaced it in the 1620s...

Here is the  link for more about that.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/13/mexico-priest-grave-spanish-conquest-aztec-archaeology

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At the top of this page is an illustration that summarizes Joseph Campbell's concept of the hero's journey."  ( http://www.movieoutline.com/articles/the-hero-journey-mythic-structure-of-joseph-campbell-monomyth.html )

Whether you are talking about Indiana Jones or Star Wars or any of a large number of other popular films or stories there are plot elements that you will see over and over again.

You might wonder what that has to do with treasure hunting. I'm not writing about the art of writing today.  I'm writing about human adventure and experience.  Those who "follow their passion" go through the steps and stages shown in the illustration to one extent or another.  There are treasure hunters that actually live the hero's journey.

If you look at the illustration at the top of the page, you'll see that the hero's journey begins in the ordinary everyday world.  It starts out in a place of relative comfort.  You might call it home.  Then the prospective hero receives a calling.  Just as one example, Luke Skywalker started as a farm boy living on a small backwater planet.  In his case, the calling was initiated when two droids appeared with a mysterious message.

The calling is to a life of adventure.  The life of adventure requires leaving comfort, ease, safety, and the current state of affairs.  Whether it is Never-Never-Land, Emerald City, Shangra-la, or a strange distant galaxy, after much conflict, the hero has to step out into a new life where he is tested over an over again.

Some treasure hunters experience the sequence of events described in the Hero's Journey and shown in the illustration above.  They make a decision to leave the life of familiarity and jump into the adventure. In a previous post I tried to describe something like that as being "all in."  Many reject the calling, and that might be the right thing to do for them.  The life of adventure is a life of risk.  You don't know if you will be successful, and there is a lot to overcome.  It requires a leap of faith.

You can find a complete breakdown of Raiders of the Lost Ark and how it follows the stages of the Hero's Journey at the following web site.  http://gordonnapier.com/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-the-heros-journey-breakdown/

I know I didn't do this topic justice, and I apologize.  It would probably take hundreds of pages, if I could do the topic justice at all.

Some treasure hunters actually live the Hero's Journey very much as it is described by Joseph Campbell and the illustration above.  If you look into what I talked about today and think about it, you might get some good insight into treasure hunting.  That is my hope.

As I suggested in a previous post, the hero's journey is more about the journey and personal development than it is about any object or objects. Traveling the yellow brick road, the cowardly lion finds courage, and the tin man and scarecrow find what they lacked.  In the end, Dorothy returns home changed.

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Let me know if you got anything at all out of this post.  It wasn't easy for me to try to address a subject like this in a brief post, and I don't really know if I should have tried.  I got something out of it anyway.

Thanks for your responses to the new blog poll.

Remember to watch the surf predictions.  It looks like we might actually get a 6 - 9 foot surf by Monday.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net