READING CARVED SYMBOLS

Many of you have already seen this carving because it was posted on a treasure hunting forum but I thought I would post it here and try to explain it’s meaning. Reading carved symbols is first about determining if they are treasure related and then if they are a map or a clue in a map.

Once you have determined the carving you are looking at is a map you have to decipher the symbols and find the hole(s). Pretty basic stuff, at least one would think. Carved maps are generally very close to what is buried and most, if not all of the information you need to find the hole is in the map. There are occasions that a map won’t give you all of the information because the person or group who made the carving was just giving themselves enough information to jog their own memory about where the cache is hidden. Those are a completely different story and require at least one bottle of aspirin or alcohol depending on your preference!

This particular carving had me stumped for about six months until I got lucky, yes lucky. Having a little or even a lot of good luck on your side is never a bad thing! I was looking at a satellite photo of the area where this carving goes and it just popped out at me. Now mind you, I had looked at that same photo for months but I was trying to make it harder than it actually was so I never saw what was right there in front of my eyes.

This carving was made on a small rock outcropping at the top of a hill. The location of the caches ended up being just a little over 75 feet away and could be plainly seen from the location of the carving. Everything you needed could be seen from the carving if you were looking for it. The Ks in the carving are topographical features. Part of the hill the carving was on had been manipulated, they had dug a three foot deep trench 100 yards long to form the back of the first K. Other than that, everything else was natural.

If you look at the carving you will see that one K is bigger and sits higher on the carving than the other. This positioning of the Ks was to show elevation. The first K was higher on the side of the hill than the second K. The W or what looks like a W is actually two V points pointing you down from the top of the hill, directly below the carving, which is where the Ks are located. It was my assumption that there was one point for each K.

The carving has drill holes in it to tell you how many caches you are looking for. This carving basically says find the two Ks. From the end point on the angled bottom leg of the highest elevation K you will go in a straight line parallel with the back of the K (this is the trench they dug). The distance to go was figured out by measuring the back of the K in the carving and measuring the line that takes you to the treasure. By knowing the trench that formed the back line of the K in the layout was 300 feet long you could use the length of the two lines in the carving to formulate the distance to go.

Along with a picture of the carving I have added two satellite photos of the area. The first is just the photo and the second is the photo with the Ks and hole locations marked. The yellow dot is where the carving is located; the red dots are two of the cache locations.

As far as carvings go, this was a simple one, if you can actually call them simple. It only had a few steps to go through to find what you were looking for. It was very straight forward and when looked at properly gave you all of the information you needed, the topography, the elevation, the complete layout and what direction to go and an exact distance. You just had to know what the Ks were.

Most of the other carvings I have run into aren’t this short, straightforward or simple. OK, not simple, let’s say less complicated, but I will tell you from experience, DO NOT try to over think things. Most of the mistakes that are made working these kinds of carvings are made because we try to make it harder than it really is.