Traveling west out of Asheville, North Carolina and crossing the border into Jackson County, one can trace the Caney Fork River along toward the little Tuckasegee community, following NC Highway 107 heading out of the nearby campus town of Cullowhee. There, off a gravel road running between two pastures, is one of the most underrated–and often overlooked–wonders anywhere in the Eastern United States.
Known today as “Judaculla Rock”, the strange stone mound protrudes from the earth just as it did centuries ago, much earlier even than the Cherokee Indians had begun to inhabit the region. According to most estimates by geologists, the stone’s markings date back as much as 3000 years, though on Raliegh-based group a number of years ago supposed that some of the petroglyphs covering the boulder could be twice as old as previous estimates, if not more.
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Interesting to say the least. I have seen pictures of these petroglyphs before and they and the legends pertaining to them are fascinating. Native art, and carvings are a hobby of mine. Many carvings are very similar as are the legends associated with them. Early natives liked to travel, trade, and converse among other things. That would help explain some of the similarities. After reading the comments of the article it brought to mind an interesting story that took place in Moundville, Alabama in 1938 during a CCC dig. Moundville Archaeological State Park is very spellbinding place in it's own right just south of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The article pertaining to the rock references TsulKalu the Cherokee mythic giant god (notice the similarity to the adjacent modern day city just ten miles north of Moundville called Tuscaloosa). The city of Tuscaloosa was named after chief Tuskaloosa (aka Tuskalusa, Tastaluca, Tuskaluza) who was reported by members of DeSoto's expedition to be over seven feet tall! Moundville was the second largest mound complex in North America and a hub for government and religion among the natives in that region. For nearly five hundred years it was a thriving city. It still begs for questions to be answered, but one of the strangest has archaeologist John Patton Jr. at it's roots. Late in life Patton revealed that he had found a strange creatures that was "not of this earth" in one of the mounds. Also, during this time two of his co-workers were found dead and one of the dying men had scribbled above his body "I have found the Genesis". Patton risked all to tell his story but in the end was discredited by his peers. Still, he stood by his story and wrote a book about his discoveries dying in obscurity. In 2010 his grandson made a small independent film entitled "A Genesis Found". Here is a link to YouTube video about the story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWECqgae_Ro
ReplyDeleteThanks, very informative and I'll check out the video.
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