A STROLL ON TURKEY MOUNTAIN: Petroglyphs and Lo's Cave

A STROLL ON TURKEY MOUNTAIN: Petroglyphs and Lo's Cave

My wife Elspeth gave me a little digital camera for Christmas. I knew just where I wanted to go to try it out, one of my favorite haunts around Tulsa, Turkey Mountain.

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Turkey Mountain is not really a mountain; it is a long low wooded hill that runs about two miles along the west side of the Arkansas River, bounded by I-44 on the north and 71^st St on the south. It is also the largest undeveloped piece of land in the Tulsa Metro area, and has miles of trails managed by the Tulsa Parks Dept., largely to the benefit of fat tire cycling enthusiasts.

Friday morning I stuck the new camera in my pocket, and took a hike on Turkey Mountain. I took, literally, the road less traveled, a less trafficked trail that winds along the base of the limestone bluffs that front the river. This is the landscape that means home, the place I see in my mind’s eye when I think of my “homeland” in Oklahoma.

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My stroll had a destination. I followed the trail to its end, and then walked along the old railroad that runs between Turkey Mountain and the Arkansas River. I was looking for a sign, a sign carved in rock that read “LO’S CAVE.” Lo’s Cave is a crevice in the limestone where the bluffs come close to the railroad track and the river. Many odd things are carved in the rock there. It is relatively easy to spot in winter—if you know what you’re looking for. In the full foliage of summer, it’s almost impossible to find the place, even if you think you know where it is. I’ve walked right past it more than once.

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I worked my way up the slope through the vines and underbrush to the base of the limestone blocks that form a bit of a cliff on the side of the hill. The place and some of the markings found there have been described in Chapter 3 of Gloria Farley’s In Plain Sight: Old World Records in Ancient America. This tome contains some delicious Okie-arcana about various alleged runes and other markings left, so Farley believes, by Pre-Colombian European travelers, in the native stone of Oklahoma.

Let’s compare the drawings from Farley’s book to my digital photography:

The “pecked profile”

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Farley writes: “The profile was pecked in rather a crude manner. So was the "LOS CAVE" and "BAD DOG." It was rumored that in the 1920's a hobo had lived at the site in a shelter he had made. There were gouges at the entrance to the narrow hallway as if someone had hung a gate. There were notches cut in the top of the slab and also into the cliff opposite as if someone had laid boards across for a roof. Had a hobo named LOS pecked the profile? Latex molds of all the petroglyphs concerned indicate that a different tool was used for the profile, than was used for the "LOS CAVE" and "BAD DOG" inscriptions.” I can confirm the gouges and notches.

Gwen in 0gam and Pia in Punic

(as attributed by Farley, et al.)

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Farley writes: “Below the petroglyph of the face was a space where a huge slab of stone had split away from the cliff, forming a hallway about 3 feet wide. Pecked on the inner wall were the legends, "LOS CAVE" and "Bad Dog." We turned our attention to an inscription on the cliff to the left of the profile, at chest height. It consisted of vertical lines which intersected a horizontal stemline formed by a deep natural crack. Below were three symbols which looked like the English letters "PIA." I was reasonably certain that the top line formed Ogam script, and I suspected that the three capital letters might also be ancient script because of the shape of the A.”

“The Ogam script is 'G-W-N,' meaning 'Gwen' or 'Gwynn,' masculine form of 'Fair,' one of the commonest Celtic names and equivalent to the English 'White.' The inscription below the Ogam, reading from left to right, are the North Iberian letters, 'Pa-ya-a,' spelling a Punic word that also means 'white.'”

“Zayra”

I was too chickenshit to climb on top of the big slab of rock, which Farley describes as “12 feet tall on the inner side but had a 30-foot drop-off on the side toward the track. It was about 3 feet wide on top.” I stood on a little ledge, and took the photo with one hand and hung onto the side of the rock with the other, so the picture is tilted. The parallel lines and arrow seen in the drawing are visible in the upper lefthand corner of the photo. Farley and her associate Dr. Fell interpret the chiseled graffito thusly:

“Above the rectangle are three letters, the first of which is spalled in the center, and an arrow pointing up-river. Within the rectangle are either nine or ten symbols, with the first and third broken off at the top. The fourth, or fourth and fifth, are problematical. Working within these limitations, Fell stated that the top three letters, read from right to left, are a name in Iberian Punic: "Z-r-A," or "Zarya." The meaning is "farmer," the same meaning as the English name "George." Fell also stated that an Iberian king who left his record in New York has this same name. The letters within the rectangle are also Iberian Punic, reading from right to left "K- -s -r-p-i-," or "continue on this way." This would relate to the pointing arrow mentioned above. Two other letters on a slant below, with one intersecting the bottom line of the rectangle, are the Numidian letters "s(z)o-h," meaning "continue on." ”

There were other runelike marks scratched in the stone:

These "runes" run at an angle below the pecked profile.

Around the corner of the slab is another little cave:

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Also, more "runes:"

I sat awhile in the mouth of the cave, enjoying the winter sun, daydreaming of ancient Celts, Iberians, Numideans, and who-knows-what-all voyaging up the Arkansas River, hundreds or thousands of years ago… I wonder if any of them stopped to visit the mound builders downstream at Spiro?

Then I slid down the brambled slope to the railroad tracks, and wended my way—on this trail one definitely wends—back to the car. I was hungry, and my knees hurt. It was a good walk, and I needed a good walk on Boxing Day.

Originally posted December 28, 2003.