Carved rock

HI, just wondering if anyone would have any ideas on this.. it is approx 7cm long & 4cm wide, it appears to have something bound around it & it has worn the stone down.. carvings are only on one side.. I found it washed up on a beach just north of Coffs Harbour..

Info with above image

Very interesting rock Catherine.Could it have been bound to a stick and used as a club maybe?

I'm not sure at all.. I'm wondering if possibly a mapping stone??? That may have been used by indigenous people..???

Hi Catherine, can you dig your fingernail into it?
Is it light?
Looks a bit like pumice stone to me which washes up down on the beaches here too.
Reeko

Not at all , the stone is extremely hard, not pumice... thankyou though for your suggestion

Eldorado said:

Very interesting rock Catherine.Could it have been bound to a stick and used as a club maybe?

Click to expand...

Maybe a club....but maybe a small hand tool...I believe Indigenous relic....have a look through a few websites on tools :Y:
Definitely looks clubbed shaped 8)

Such an odd rock. Dont know if its been hand crafted that way for some reason, if the lines are for rope it doesnt make sense even more, unless possibly a club. I was thinking along the lines that the rock could have a softer material within cracks (whiter) which is slowly eating away before the surrounding (darker) rock, but it would most likely go through the whole rock, not stop half way.
The main 'carved' horizontal line has a crack, suggesting it may be about to split in half soon, and this seems more natural parting of foliation or again weak/soft gritty sandstone layer, not a result of a man made rub mark. Interesting!

Possibly a map on a stone!

I suspect it is a natural cobble. If you look around the "equator" of the first photo, you can see that the light colour corresponds to an obvious fracture in the rock. I think the other pattern probably follows smaller microfractures, perhaps hairline in width. Water can more readily penetrate fractures than the unfractured part of the rock, so the composition of the rock is altered along the fractures, making them lighter in colour. I think you will find that they are not lines on the surface but that they penetrate into the interior of the rock, below its surface. You say the "carvings" are only on one side, but at least one other occurs on both sides in your photo....



You can actually see that the equatorial light area extends into the rock, so it looks broader where the rock above it has broken away, exposing how it penetrates into the rock. If you split it along that equatorial fractures (as you probably don't want to) you would almost certainly see that the fracture is a light-coloured surface that continues inside the rock.

You're all wrong, it is where the local octopus slept every night! Now he/she is homeless! 8.( :lol:

Or just to throw it out there maybe this

aboriginal sharpening stone