By Tim Binnall
Officials in England are asking the public for their help in solving the mystery of a peculiar stone carving that has left experts scratching their heads. The puzzling sandstone specimen (seen above) was reportedly unearthed this past summer during an excavation at a site known as Nesscliffe Hill in town of Shrewsbury. The rock's curious carving has proven to be particularly perplexing to archaeologists Paul Reilly and Gary Lock, who oversaw the dig, as they are uncertain what exactly the drawing is meant to convey nor when it may have been made. And so, in the hopes of finding answers, officials from the county where the mysterious stone was discovered have launched an appeal to residents to see if they can solve the mystery.
The drawing on the stone, which has been dubbed 'Nessglyph,' sports two distinct characteristics: a circular indentation and a series of lines. Intriguingly, Reilly explained that these two details are "indicative of two different types of technology, grinding and carving." He went on to theorize that the Nessglyph is meant to depict some kind of figure with the indentation being its head and the various scratches representing "two long horns and two small horns, a central body line and two arms, one held up and the other down, the upward one showing a possible hand holding a pipe or a weapon." While the drawing me be that of a horned figure, he indicated that placing it in historical context is another challenge altogether.
Observing that "the carving has similarities with Late Bronze Age carvings of figures in horned helmets," Reilly noted that the region was once the domain of a Roman tribe known as the Cornovii, which is a moniker "that has been suggested to reference to the ‘horned ones’." He also put forward another theory wherein the drawing is connected to "a horned deity cult in the Roman army as depicted at several military sites across Britain." Since the Nessglyph was found in dirt that had been put back into a archaeological trench that had been dug in the 1950, he lamented that this lack of "secure context" makes it difficult to date. Can you solve the mystery of the stone carving? Share your best guess with us at the C2C Facebook page.