Snake Head

[mtwilber]

Here is another really neat artifact.......(really bored at work right now so I'm posting all kinds of random stuff). 
This item was found by my daughter's late Great grandfather Robert Jacobson in Mountrail County, ND, up on a very large hill east of the Four Bears Bridge. 
Someday I am hoping to have this item in my collection but that'll have to wait until I can talk the wife into letting me spend some more of my money on rocks.
But, a really neat, super rare item from my home area.
It is made of sandstone.
Enjoy!.............and let me know if you have any thoughts on it.  I've never seen anything like it.
Here is another snake carving from the same field.

[flintchip]

That is way cool -and- certainly worth obtaining. Any chance your daughter will inherit?

[mtwilber]

I kind of doubt it.......but I would like to obtain as many of the really nice pieces before the whole collection ends up getting split between all the members of the family.  No telling where or with who it'll end up.  They don't quite have the same interest in artifacts as I have or Robert had.

[axeman309]

Wow very cool piece, I have never seen anything like that. I do know there has been alot of Mississpian effigy pipes made out of sandstone and 99% of them were used as awl abraders. You wouldn't think that they would use such rare beautiful artifacts for that but they did. Does that one show any signs of being used as an abrader?

[mtwilber]

I'll have to take a look at it next time I'm over at my daughter's great grandmother's house.  I know it has a vertical line on either side of it back from the face that look a bit like the person who made it was trying to represent the back of the snakes head, where it goes from being wide to being quite narrow where the body begins.  There is also a broken end of a pestle that was carved in the shape of a snakes head that came from the same hill top field.  I'll try to post a picture of it a little later.
Thanks!

[Tam]

I was going on the way back machine and looking at what you guys found when this first started ... what is this !

[CMD]

I was going on the way back machine and looking at what you guys found when this first started ... what is this !

My guess is the front end of an effigy pestle. I've seen quite a few from a site in New York. The broken back end is where the business end of the pestle was located, which is the end you would expect to occasionally break in usage....

[CMD]

Just noticed there are two items shown, not one. The second is the head of an effigy pestle. Not sure on the first, although it is clearly a snake effigy, complete with a forked tongue....

[Tam]

I started looking in some books and looks like the 3&4th
pic are a style if you would call it that . It’s those first 2
I have never seen that .
Very cool ..