What is this?

[Trubke]

Hello. I feel like I'm jumping into a well established community totally green to the artifact world and am just having my eyes opened. Before I start throwing a lot of pictures your way asking what it is, thought I'd give you a little background so you know where I'm coming from.

That being said, I've always picked up rocks. Not looking for anything in particular, just love rocks. My whole family does. We have baskets of random rocks around the house. One of my favorites looks like a bowling ball and I keep it on top of a basket in my bedroom. Last week I was just looking at it and something clicked in my head that the holes I see may not be nature made but maybe man made. I picked the rock up and started looking it over closer. I realized there were chipping marks on it and suddenly got super excited that it may be something that was made by someone thousands of years ago. So I grabbed a random basket and started shuffling through it looking at my rocks from a "could this be" perspective and almost right away I see what looks like a carved owl in my hand. How I missed this I have no idea. It could have been one of my little rock loving kids that threw it in the pile, but there it was. So now here I am asking, "What is this." It most likely came from Texas Hill Country region. Other possibilities would be Iowa, Northeast US or Georgia. I'm kicking myself for not knowing better to pay attention to what I'm picking up and from where.

So here's my first attempt to post a picture and first of many, many "What is this?" questions. Please be kind, I really don't know what I'm doing here and at the same time feel this surge of excitement to be discovering this whole world I didn't know about.

I'm not going to try and describe what's in the picture, if you have questions just ask. Thanks in advance for any help.

[Trubke]

[Hoss]

Natural in my honest opinion. Mother nature is one of the finest artists ever known. In your hand is one of her signatures in my honest opinion. Some folks will call it a "geofact, A rock that might look like something but it is just a rock." others might say "a leaveright short and sweet for leave her right there!" Others would call it "a specimen" This one is my favorite because one of our forum members coined it. Jessy said "On the ground it is just a rock. Pick it up, bring it home and clean it. It now becomes a specimen! " There are other names but I will leave it at a short list.

[Hoss]

PS welcome to the forum and you did good posting these pictures. Try putting something in the pictures for scale a ruler or a coin this was in your hand so we have a general idea but moving ahead it might be better if you use a scale of some sort.

[Havenhunter]

Welcome from SE VA! I know how you feel! I have a half dozen rocks out in my wannabe rock pile I've tried to make something out of, only to accept the fact that they are indeed nature's curiosities. Doesn't make them any less special to the finder however. Enjoy your rocks.

[Trubke]

That's crazy! I was so sure that I had an owl in my hand I imagined I was seeing little chisel marks, haha. So disappointed, I'll go ahead an post a snapshot of some of the other rocks in my "looks like something" pile so I can be let down all at once. Then I can put my rocks back in the basket and walk away and go back to my fossil hunting

[taxidermist01]

That my friend, plain and simple is an Alien Egg and you are in a heap of trouble removing it from area 57 ET aint going to be to happy either. Welcome to the forum by the way, from North Carolina. Don't feel bad, I am getting ready to share a find with you that I swore on as being a Dinosaur egg only to find out that I had egg all over my face for thinking it was an egg.

[taxidermist01]

When is a Fossilized Dinosaur Egg not a Fossil Dinosaur Egg? When it is just a Nodule. I was extremely saddened to have to accept the fact when I was convinced that this was not a fossil egg. I still kept it though and it is still proudly on display with some of my real fossils.

[Trubke]

Thanks for sharing. How did you find out it wasn't what you thought it was? I'm still having a very hard time accepting this thing I have isn't what I think it is.

[Trubke]

Super cool find, by the way!

[Havenhunter]

If you do a search on eBay for NA paint pots, you'll see dozens of listings for hollowed out rocks (photo 3) that never saw the hand of ancient man. By all counts, if they were all genuine, the Native Americans spent an inordinate amount of time painting up.
Nature creates some real cool stuff!

[Trubke]

Do you apply that logic to everything you evaluate?

[gregszybala]

"Thanks for sharing. How did you find out it wasn't what you thought it was? I'm still having a very hard time accepting this thing I have isn't what I think it is."
"Do you apply that logic to everything you evaluate?"

Okay, I see a rock, others see a rock, you don't see a natural rock. What makes you think it isn't natural? Are the eyes painted on or etched in? Does it show obvious signs of being worked?
Here are a few owl effigy artifacts. https://www.google.com/search?q=owl+...FQlyPgodSsIGCw What do you think?
Applying logic, thought, learning, opening our mind offers us the opportunity to learn more and more about what we don't know and what we think we know.

[Trubke]

Thank you, thank you , thank you. Thank you for explaining some and providing resources. This is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. A shrug and quip about a natural rock I can respect to a point, but something was really getting to me here. Sorry it took a smart arse comment to start getting a little insight. I'll go start reading your link now. I appreciate your time.

[taxidermist01]

As for me, I took the reasons behind why others were saying it was not a fossil egg and I researched their reasoning and was swayed to believe them. Sometimes I want something to be what I see so badly that it makes it hard to read others opinions but it almost always turns out that if they are right, I follow up on it more than enough to see why.

[taxidermist01]

Oh-by the way Trubke, I haven't decided for myself that yours is not what you think. Looking at your pictures, I can see why you think it looks like an Owl Effigy. What I have decided is that I can't say either way looking at the pictures only so I am going to call it one of those things that make you go Hmmm!

[painshill]

Those eye-like features are purely geological and natural. They form as a result of the compression/expansion of siliceous material in sediments before they lithify. Banded flints and cherts are formed by exactly those processes which - on a small scale - take the form of concentric rings. The bands may have different resistances to erosion/weathering and may then take on the appearance of being carved.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ba...3CPQiw#imgrc=_

The vast majority of "paint pots" sold on eBay are either hematite concretions which have broken and lost their interior contents or they're what are called omarolluks. The latter have a specific geographical range in North America because they have been glacially deposited, but similar features are common in sedimentary rock types elsewhere from either the erosion of concretions or the loss of pebbles trapped in the sediments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omarolluk

[Trubke]

Cool, thanks! Going to go have a look at your resources now. What you are explaining makes sense about the rings. I see it totally, and even the back side of the exposed embedded rock (for lack of a better word or understanding) that makes the anatomical right eye looks naturally formed to me too. What has me scratching my head a little more is the what looks to me like etched anatomical left eye. I ponder was it seen and added as inspiration. Now that's a huge leap coming from someone who knows nothing about the thinkings of prehistoric (if that's what it's called) man. More details are there that don't photograph well, like what looks like wing etchings. There's just a lot more going on there than shows in a photograph.

Sincerely, thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge and resources. As I mentioned earlier, I was a bit frustrated with the lack of explanations.

Regarding the "paint pot", I didn't even know what that was last week. I thought it could be a fire starter thing or just a fluke (aka nature made). The red streaks threw me. I got a tidbit of info today about how certain iron containing rocks will turn red with rubbing. I don't even know what kind of rock material it is, so again, thanks for expanding on that.

I was close to closing out this account, but if I can get more from the wealth of knowledge I know is here I'll stick around a little longer.

[Trubke]

Again, thank you for your input.

Ok, so I read up on concentric rings last night and this morning sorted through my rocks to pull examples and compare. The difference in the concentric ring of the "owl eye" that I see is tiny
divot chip marks. I don't see how to add a comparison picture in this comment, so I'll add it to the main thread if you would be willing to take a look and comment. Thanks.

Also, these photos are just phone pictures, so if you'd like to see pictures taken using a macro lens with my Nikon, speak up!

[Havenhunter]

I think others have answered your question about applying logic far better than I could have.

[Trubke]