Friday, September 13, 2013

Tennessee Cave Inscription

Reader Brad Lewis writes:

Hello… my name is Brad Lewis. I "discovered" a cave near my rural home in Tennessee in 1994. I've explored it for up to 1.5 hours deep and have taken many photos. The entrance is about 6ft high and 20 feet wide. It has a small shallow running stream flowing out of it. This originates from an artesian well deep within cave. The cave entrance faces due West. The cave lowers quickly and narrows some after the first 35-40 yards. After 2 sharp water filled turns all natural light is gone and you can get upon solid ground with some room to spare. But the ceiling today is low. It probably varied in this area 2 to 4 feet. I found out last year this was an undocumented cave in my county and had not been mapped or explored.     

I've taken a renewed interest in the last 2 years and am trying to figure out the significance (if any)  of an etched mud/clay mound within this cave. This mound is just after the 2 sharp turns and about 55 yards deep total. It located up again the cave wall and the ceiling. It's 4' long by 18" high and about 12" thick. About 1/3 way from its left going right it's cracked apart. There are 4-5 obvious symbols etched within the mud/clay. On left side is a large wavy figure and just left and midway down from this figure is another small one. It has a small black dot in its center and found lines going North, South, East and West coming from the center of black dot. There is a pile of stones at mounds base here also. And it appears some small pebbles were pushed into the wavy figures line if you look closely (left side). On the other 2/3's of mound (right side) the figures "H", "L", and "R" appear. They are spread out and each figure is about 3"- 4" high. And there appears to be many other figures or symbols but they are very faded. I don't know if the H, L, and R are a form of Runes writings or not. They do not appear to be initials from early spelunkers because they are so spread out. There is evidence of a large fire being used for a long time near the entrance due to the 5' - 6' burnt circle area on the ceiling. And there is evidence of fire near this mound also. I'll attach some photos for review and any opinions or thoughts would be appreciated….

[Here are some photos]:
 
Read more here (click on page 8 and scroll down) 
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/today-s-finds/359759-metal-detectiing-tn-cave-anybody-done-7.html

3 comments :

pwax said...

On Wikipedia the Anglo-Fresian Runes are a decent match for the "H" "R" and "L" but not the "A".

pwax said...

There has been some email traffic about this post but nothing significant so far.

TommyH said...

It appears to be prehistoric images overlain with historic lettering. You might want to contact Jon Simek at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He has recorded over 70 of these sites.