The smiling Turtle effigy is carved from solid blue quartz laden granite rock. This smiling giant has guarded over Lithia Springs for untold thousands of years. If you look close you will see that the Smiling Turtle is anthropomorphic... meaning it is a turtle with human features.
The turtle is the ancient symbol of long life and health.
Photo taken Oct 2010 with D90 nikon and a Af Micro Nikkor 60 mm lens
Frog Rock has been a tourist attraction for Douglas County since the first settlers came in the 1840's. Frog Rock was almost destroyed by the Dept of Roads, but fortunately Gleda James (pictured below) fought hard to protect it from damage. Today when visit Lithia Springs you may see it in all of its glory.
This photo was taken in 1994 with a 35 mm camera
Fire Bird Effigy: Here I am proud of our discovery of a carved granite Fire Bird Effigy. The nose looks like an arrow head. The large eye is carved and in high relief. This ancient wonder more than 5,000 years old. This ancient place is perhaps one of the oldest stone temples in America. There are many discoveries that await us as we continue our archeological excavations.
Photo taken in summer of 2010 with a Nikon D7000 and a Af-S Nikkor 18-135 mm lens
Lithia Water Temple holds great mysteries and perhaps one of the greatest mysteries is the Rock Art or Petroglphs found on the its stone temple walls.
Petroglyphs (rock carvings From petro, meaning rock and glyph, meaning symbol) a form of rock art that consist of designs carved into the surface of natural rock. Forms include lines, dots, numbers, geometric shapes, human, animal, supernatural beings or astronomical images.
Amazing, fantastic, unbelievable are just some of the adjectives that describe the archaeological discoveries at Lithia Springs.
Pictured above is a kneeling laughing man who has a serpent coming from its head. If you look closely you see many humanoid figures that convey concepts.
We are keeping most of the Lithia Springs mysteries a secret until summer 2012 when we open to the public the ancient Lithia Water Temple.
Photo taken Oct 2009 with Nikon D90 and a AF Micro Nikkor 60 mm lens
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lithiasprings/
The snake coming from the head was a typical Egyptian motif.
ReplyDeleteSee here (scroll down).
http://mathisencorollary.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-year-of-snake.html
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