BABY ROCK

The following article was originally printed in Ancient American magazine, Volume Four, Issue #27. This was an early report on what is certainly an important artifact. Although well documented since the 1930's, this site has been largely ignored or overlooked. Since this article was written, more information has developed, and some of my ideas about the artifact have changed. I therefore plan to post at least two additional articles about this rock. I don't believe I can overstate its importance.

There is a rock not far from here, not far from where I live. Locals call it “Indian Rock,” or sometimes “Baby Rock.”

My friend and I found it on a warm, sunny afternoon. We had both been searching for it for weeks. Oddly enough, we only discovered our mutual quest when we happened to meet at the County Museum, where we were both looking for references. We discovered we had each been trying to find the same rock at the same time, for different reasons.

The afternoon we found it, I climbed an embankment, looked, and said one word – “Yes.” Then we were both silent a long time. It was a silence of reverence and wonder.

Before I tell you more about this rock, I find I must tell you something about the place where I live, so that you will understand something of why this rock is so special.

My friend Suzanne and I live in Lake County, California. This place is different from most other places in the world, and most people here are pleased about that. We’re located only about 150 miles north of San Francisco, but it sometimes seems like another planet.

The County is dominated by two main geographical features- a dormant volcano, Mt. Konocti, and Clear Lake, possibly the oldest lake in the western U.S. and the largest in California. Before the European invasion, Pomo Indians, Mi-Wok and other peoples lived here in peace and prosperity for about ten thousand years. No one saw any point in going elsewhere.

The County is surrounded by mountains, which tends to keep outsiders away. The Spanish missions never got this far. Neither did the railroad. Even today, the only roads in or out are narrow and winding. So we tend to be insular. There are a lot of old things around, that haven’t yet been changed, destroyed, or even discovered. After living here five years myself, I’m only now beginning to find the great wealth of archeological treasure that lies around and beneath us.

I had heard of “Indian rock.” I had heard there were markings on it. Vague descriptions made it sound as if it might hold some kind of writing. Based on these descriptions, I was eager to find it.

Suzanne was looking for this rock for a different purpose – she was working on her master’s degree in History. We found references to Indian Rock on file at the museum library. The only picture we could find was an old photocopy, which showed almost no detail. The earliest record was in 1936.

The reason this object was called “Baby Rock” was because of what Pomo Indians had told early investigators: That it was used as a “healing stone” and that it could help infertile women become pregnant.

“Baby Rock” is situated on a private ranch in Lake County; this is as much as I will mention about its location in a public forum. There are two reasons for my reticence: To protect the ranch owners from trespassers, and more important to protect the rock from vandals and souvenir hunters. According to local legend, there was another inscribed rock here at one time, but it has since disappeared.

Suzanne and I had to cross a dry creek bed and climb the opposite bank to reach the stone. I believe it’s significant that it’s located on the bank of a creek; such places were often regarded as “energy points” by native peoples. There are several similar rocks nearby, higher on the hillside, but we could find no inscriptions on them.

So far, I have already told you all that we knew about Indian Rock before actually laying eyes on it. I had wanted to track it down simply because I had heard vague descriptions that sounded like writing.

Of course, I had seen other pictographs in this area, as well as various Indian artifacts. I had even seen one or two that looked vaguely like Ogham. But this was different.

If there was any doubt in my mind at the time, it was later dispelled as I studied my photographs and compared them with other examples from various reference books. This is unmistakably and unequivocally Ogham.

As I looked at the surface of the rock it also became clear that it had astronomical functions. There is one obvious marker near the top, shaped like a pointer. In the exact center is a tiny round hole, where a wooden peg could be inserted. The pointer points southwest, so that the sun rising in the northeast would cause a peg to cast a shadow across the point. I believe this was most likely a marker for Summer solstice sunrise.

While at the site I took a compass bearing for the pointer, using a lensatic pocket compass. I read 240⁰, which would give a back bearing of 60⁰. That is, a sun at 60⁰ would cause a peg inserted in the center of the figure to cast a shadow at the point.

This bearing would be perfect, since Summer solstice sunrise at this latitude in theory occurs at 59⁰38’. However, this leaves out two factors – magnetic deviation, and the hillside to the northeast of the rock. After thinking about the problem, we have concluded that the only way we can prove this is actually a Summer solstice marker is either by means of surveying instruments and an ephemeris, or by visiting the rock at dawn next June 21^st! The latter solution would seem easier and more accurate, provided it doesn’t rain.

Indian Rock itself is only about five feet high and ten feet in diameter. Entirely covered with inscriptions, it must have been in use for many years. The very wealth of writing itself makes translation extremely difficult, since it’s often hard to tell where one inscription leaves off and another begins.

The Ogham here is typical of that found in the eastern U.S. and in the Midwest. There are several different styles. In some cases there are words formed with a traditional baseline and vertical strokes. In others, a natural crevice is used as baseline. Other words are inscribed without a base. There are some symbols that appear to be vowel indicators, typical of later forms of Ogham; in some cases a vowel is indicated with an extended vertical stroke.

Here I must make a disclaimer: I am neither an Ogham expert nor a linguist; I am merely a reporter. However, with even my scant familiarity with this alphabet, I was able to recognize one word almost immediately. This was “B-L,” the name of the sun god Baal or Bel in Ogham consaine. It is found in at least two prominent places on top of the rock. The letter “B” is a later American form, like a “V” on its side. The “L” is two short vertical strokes with no baseline.

Another inscription I could make out appears to spell: “M-G, M-H-M-B.” The separation between the first and second word is indicated by the way the letters slant. According to Barry Fell, “M-H-M-B” refers to Mahair Mabon, the Celtic mother goddess whose name is often found on fertility stones. The meaning of “M-G” is uncertain. Barry Fell gives the meaning of “fog or mist,” but in Old Irish “mag” is an open field. This would make sense in the context – “Field of the Mother Goddess.” I became aware of the above translation on flipping through America B.C. There, on page 240, I found a picture of an almost identical inscription on a fertility stone in Vermont.1

I’m aware that I’m on shaky ground here. We don’t even know for sure what language this is. I prefer to leave the difficult task of translation to others. However, it was startling to discover a similar Ogham inscription in California and on a “baby rock” in New England!

Besides the obvious sun marker on top, there are a number of other designs probably astronomical in nature, but less apparent in their purpose. There are nine sunburst designs. There are also two other designs with holes in the center – but these are square holes, rather than round.

This detail I found puzzling, since I could not understand why someone would want a tiny square hole rather than a round one; nor could I understand how they were made without metal tools.

Then I realized that until the 19^th Century, most hand wrought nails were square in shape. Probably the maker wanted a peg for casting a shadow in the design, but instead of using wood he simply drove a nail into the rock. The nail may have remained there for years, until it rusted and fell out, leaving a perfect square hole. This fact would indicate the rock was in use until well after the White Invasion.

I hope I have conveyed something of my sense of amazement on the day I first saw Indian Rock. But this was nothing to my sense of amazement later, when I began to examine some of the previous reports filed on this same artifact.

The top of the boulder bears hundreds of cupules and incised grooves… the incised grooves form sometimes complex, parallel-line, radiating, and intersecting-line patterns, often associated with one or more cupules…

The writer counted a total of 214 cupules. Oddly, he never mentions that some of them are blackened inside, as if they had been used for burning incense or some other substance. What I found odder still was his complete lack of awareness of archeoastronomy.

On the other hand, I was not surprised at the fact that none of the previous investigators had noticed that the rock is covered with writing. It has been long standing dogma that Indians were illiterate. In reality, it is the archeologists who are illiterate.

Finally, what are we to make of this artifact? What is it trying to tell us? That the Celts reached California and traded with the Indians? Possibly, but not necessarily. There are several other possibilities:

One alternate scenario is that the Ogham alphabet traveled independently all the way to the West Coast and was adopted by the Pomo, Wappo and Mi-Wok. This is not impossible, since Ogham is one of the oldest forms of writing known; it may be related to Sumerian Cuneiform.2 On the other hand, I’m skeptical about this idea because of the lack of supporting evidence. Furthermore, why would a Pomo use the names of Celtic gods such as Baal and Mahair Mabon?

I would like to propose a third possibility. Ogham was an evolving and changing alphabet; the early forms were not identical to the later styles.

It’s my hypothesis that Gaelic or Celtic traders introduced Ogham quite early to the East Coast of the U.S. Certainly they left plenty of inscriptions to prove that.

Native Americans would have observed the inscriptions and regarded them as a form of magic. They began to copy some of the more important symbols, such as “Baal.” This symbol ceased to be a phonetic spelling and became an ideogram, meaning “God,” “Sun,” or perhaps, “Power.” The word thus traveled unchanged yet unverbalized all the way across the continent.

Meanwhile, Indian Rock sits there in the middle of a horse pasture, year after year, in hot sun and drenching rain, bearing its silent message through the long years. Formed of diorite, it is a hard, brittle stone that may endure for centuries, or until the creek undermines its foundation and it topples in. The rock’s message will last a long time, but not forever.

Some day, I hope a real epigrapher may undertake the daunting task of translating Baby Rock. I hope it happens before our history is lost forever.

1 Barry Fell, “America B.C.” Demeter Press, 1976.

2 See, for example, “Ogam Consaine and Tifinag Alphabets, Ancient Uses,” Warren W. Dexter; Academy Books, 1984.

Note: There is a great deal more to learn from this rock, and more to be said about it. I will limit myself, however, to two brief addenda to this first article. The second is here.