Native Peoples :: Petroglyphs

I've been doing so many blog hops lately that I haven't had a chance to get back to some of my own series. 

A while back my bloggy friend Christine from One Kiss Creations gifted me some cool rocks she picked up on the shore of Lake Michigan. This one is smooth like sand with just a little impression in the rock on the lower end of this focal. Christine did a drill for me, as I have yet to figure out how to set up a drilling station. Thank you for that! It got me thinking about rock carvings, and so I used petroglyphs as an inspiration for this piece. 

You all know me by now, and you know I'm going to do a little homework on petroglyphs which are found world-wide and associated with prehistoric peoples dating back tens of thousands of years ago. The word comes from the Greek word petro (meaning stone) and glyphein (meaning to carve). I thought I'd give a little tour of some of the more prominent petroglyphs focused to circles. 

There are the ki‘i pōhaku from the Hawaiians (ki‘i means image, and pōhaku means stone). The first trip my husband and I ever took (my then boyfriend) was to Kauai, which is the oldest island in the chain and has history, stories and carvings. There are petroglyphs of canoes, paddles, sails and fishhooks as well as circles and dots associated with the piko ceremony. This ceremony takes the umbilical cord from a newborn and places it in the middle of a simple concentric circle, or petroglyph. This was done to infuse mana (divine power) to the child ensuring long life.

Ometepe Island, an island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua has one of the densest petroglyph concentrations in the world. The carvings are pre-Columbian full of spirals and circles. The early inhabitants of the island saw it as their promised land. The Maderas was a sacred place of the sun.

I think my favorite is a stone found in Ireland called The Seven Suns which is thought to be a representation of a total eclipse of the sun. It is also known as a radiating sun or radiant divine eye which is carved onto a megalithic stone block at a prehistoric tomb near Dowth, one of the Irish 'tomb shrines.'

The necklace I created is inspired by these petroglyph circles. I used a double spiral charm, one on each side of the focal and connected with hammered silver. The beaded chain is a simple spiral using earth tones and wood beads to give a more rustic look. I have to thank Christine for the rocks she gifted me. They are clearly providing a lot of inspiration in some of my designs.