One of those forever memorable events occured today that could be called a true miracle, fully rivaling finding a piece of bread in your toaster with the Virgin Mary on it Or finding an airplane in your Hudson !

LAST Monday, Michelle found a complete rare GORGET. I found a piece of one, maybe 40% complete.

THIS Monday, [ today ] a standard "ho-hum" fantastic dig day at the same site ! Bout Mid morning, digging in this MOUNTAIN of fire rock and ash. . . .
Michelle says " HEY LOOK AT THIS, A PIECE OF MATERIAL THAT LOOKS SIMILAR TO YOUR LAST WEEK'S GORGET"

Since she was FIFTEEN FEET left of where I found mine, I put it in the flint bucket and said " Yeh, I'll check it out with the other at home "

So here I am at home typing. . .

LOOK AT THIS. . .



THEN, they come together. . . .



The new piece has not been properly touched with water and toothbrush yet, I hope it stays discolored to forever scream " Thankyou Michelle [ miracle worker ] "

Now I have about 60% complete and will make reconstructing the original dimentions more true. . .



AMEN

WOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow Hal thats GREAT!!!!!!!!!!

I thought that the piece that I found could be maybe used to make another part for it to see what it would look like together!

THATS WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Glad that I found it Hal!!!!!!! Now we know that the other pieces are probably out htere as well!! WELL under 4 ft of dirt though!

Hugger!!!!!!!!!

Michelle

How About That ! The rest of it is there somewhere!

Congratulations you 2, another piece of the puzzle solved.......and would appear only 2 more to go!
I'm still looking for the other half of my blue shale gorget found in our cave, and saving all broken point pieces for a rigorous day of mix matching when I am all done. Quite a thrill, when things come together like that!

that's great. Good job, now you need to go find the other piece that is there somewhere

You may want to hold off on reconstructing because you might find more pieces now.

nice Hal! I'm ready for yall to find the rest of it. Pretty amazing stuff!

Trav, perfect Q for the occasion ! I was working on the A when Mlle jumped the gun and posted it in the latest update. so here's my words, , , , ,
Washed the second piece of gorget and glued the two together. The "A" side is very close to matching the first . . AND. . . there is ZERO glue showing [ as you described in another posting on fixin flint ]

The result as shown in the pic is the severest case of surface color distortion!
As first reported, the pieces were found about 15 feet apart, The calcified ash on #2 is really heavy; ; ;



This side will really be multicolored ! I'm not removing the historic scale !
Looking for the missing parts will always be a target on that site ! If they dont show up in a reasonable time, I will proceed with a restoration that should look like the pattern in the pic.

So that deals with scale as a color difference but the real Q slants more towards FLINT variations. . .

Here's a neat "lab experiment" anyone can handle; ; ;
Find a nice big good color flake [ no cortex, root beer would be nice ]. . .Snap it in half. Put one half in the yard where it gets full sun [ and summer baking heat !]. Tother half in the house, in a frame with the G-3's.
No predicing how long an individual sunny pc will take to change color, depends on individual internal chemistry ! Just do it and forget it ! Could take a long time, but it will happen.

Last topic. . . . .gorgets and / or PENDANTS.

It was agreed in another posting that a true Pendant has only ONE hole for hanging around the neck.
Mlle was lucky enough to find a complete one on the last dig, see latest update of 1-20-09

I dont believe the miracle lightning would strike three times so I stuck a patch on the authentic
portion. . . Looks like this; ; ; ;



The original gorget material turned out to be a yellowish colored sandstone. I was lucky enough to find two exact similar rocks in the throw material near where the original was found.
Next pic, just to show the smaller of the two blocks I used for the fix. . . .



If the original gorget artist started with a similar stone, I give him a lot of credit for determination.

I started the process with a small diamond cut off wheel, then a larger masonary blade, then a hand grinder, then many various Dremel diamond tools for the holes, edge work and the irregular joint portion.

Finish off with rough sandpaper and a thousand years of antique finish.

Nice work there Hal. Good to meet you at the Fred. show; next time we'll have to have a coffee and discuss midden theories of relativity.

This is NOT a miracle posting ! I just thought it was tidy book keeping to keep the Gorgets in one place.

First pic, A nice gorget piece I found last friday, looks about 55% complete. Made out of common old limestone.


There is an interesting flaw in the original workmanship. . . . . After all the TREMENDOUS intensive labor to create a 1/4 inch thick, nicely proportioned adornment from a block of rock, , ,
Look close at the top hole ; He made the first try too close to the edge and had to start again !

It would not have showed up at all if they had invented patching plaster in those days.

Next pic, I fabricated the missing 45%.

It's a "crude" match and I made no attempt to hide the joint line. In this type of find I prefer to let the original standout, just like in museums, you might see a missing part painted red !

Say, I've got a tooth that needs replacing, I wonder if.....