Wow that is amazing!! I've never seen anything like that other than the ceremonial shell gorgets from tennessee. As for the "antennas" maybe it's representative of a deity or maybe it's some sort of head ornament, like feathers or horns or hair. That is a really cool find!!

What's it made of Michelle? Shell or bone? Kinda reminds me of some of the rock art that had what looked like helmets on their heads. Guess they had a vivid imagination too.

Its made of SHELL ..

OUT OF THIS WORLD COOL LOOKING !!!

One could only wonder what they were trying to picture!!

Its a very special little item! I am glad I got to see this little beauty personally!

Michelle

how old is that?

Ooops, sorry, didn't see it on the COA till after I posted. Still a neat find. Wonder if it was a shamans charm. Have you ever seen others like this listed anywhere? Or just one of a kind? That would make anyones day to find it digging or screening.

Hey All;

I’m not so sure that this is all that unusual. For most of the country yes, but out here in the Southwest our Indians must have see aliens, or thought they had. Now we know those same green people were stopping by Texas also.
I have spent a lot of time looking for and spending time at pictograph and petroglyph sites to not believe these Indians saw something and impressed them enough to pound into and paint on rocks in thousands of places what they saw. But then again, maybe we just want to see aliens in their art. I for one am open to both points of view. More than likely what we see as alien is nothing more than head dress of Shaman.
I would like to know the date on this piece. What kind of shell is it made of? Where does that shell come from? Is it still available, extinct? Lots of questions. It seems to be the only one ever found so it must have been made by the one who wore it. Not a symbol known or used by a group which makes it even more intriguing.
That piece is a centerfold for sure
Here’s a few of our aliens out here. I have sit for hours at some of these sites and let my mind wander. No answers but boy does it make the long hike in, worth every step.
Happy hunting AL.C

I think they must have stopped in Australia too, going back to Jacobs rock art from down under, those little green men got around pretty good.
That or those Indians were chewing or smoking some pretty good stuff.

Al, Good comments. Picture inscriptions in TX are almost non existant. It's thought to be Conch shell as it's not as fragile as some local clam bake examples. Found just North of Austin TX.
Bill apreciates the rarety even more as he says depictions of a person is unexpected, some game animal or a pet skunk would seem more likely !

You & Te can speculate on what continent ( planet ) the image depicts , , ,I'll comment on the technical
aspects that occured to me.
The artist has a very good proportional eye so its no mistake that it is not a true circle, the maker probably had in mind to make a pendant from the inception. It's INCREDIBLY small for the complexity of
the finished product. Looks like the size got slightly overblown with having to show the hair do. The hole for a gold chain seems to be the best he could do, punching through a feather antenna.

Did the model have a really large nose that needed to be emphasised ? A single line ( like a John Barimore
nose ) would have sufficed. Big nose but no ears !
The arc with delicate dots is like looking at the subject through a fancy picture frame, NOT a representation of the models best Sunday Buckskin blouse that would have had the shoulders curving down.

Lastly are we looking at a textbook example of how some new thoughts did not catch on and cause a revolution. . ( like inventing the wheel )
Other tribe members must have seen the artistry of the piece. . . Why dont we find many ( or ANY ) cruder test pieces that someone else might have tried to emulate ?

Might be easier just to stick with the ET theorem !

There was also a extra long drilled Conch Shell Bead beside it. I will post a picture of it when I figure the picture deal out. I wish I had dug them but I didn't. I just own them now.
Bill

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC! And Priceless I'm Sure. Many, Many Congrats Bill. This is really teriffic! IT may be possible to run a carbon dating test on this item if you become intrested. WoW What a Find. Some amazing stuff has come off of the South San Gabriel River. Myself, I think I'd rather have that than a big corner tang!

It looks like "The Alien" is looking out of a porthole ----spaceship? JW-James

Your RIGHT, excellent observation JW.
Unlike the exploring visitors in AZ, These TX visitors never got out of their spaceship at all.

Hey Bill, I think what you have is a Peace pendant made by Fur Traders, Traders, Conquistadors, or Missionaries given to the Indians as a token of peace and bonding of friendship between white man and Indians in hope of securing long term trading partners or peace.

Andrew Jackson, our 7th president did the same thing in 1829-1832 issued Peace pendant to many Indian chiefs and tribe leaders after years of Indian battles and peace negotiations.

The other possibility is that an Indian may have seen one of these Andrew Jackson peace pendant metals, or Fur traders pendant on some Chiefs neck and had decided to make one for himself out of shell.
John

John L. . . I like the last possibility of your observation. Good thinking .

To make a close copy of something on local material ( shell) is more logical than one Michael Angelo doing a Sistien Chapel ceiling without many practice pieces as part of the tribes'overall artistic evolution.

Like everybody else, , ,I Googled Andys' peace pendants. I didn't dig too deep but all I saw was
stamped metal.

Talk about stumbling on yet ANOTHER "collectable" type of trivia to focus on to collect.. . .
They are still cranking out new "peace" pendants for the new millenium of "Hippies"

Hey John the only problem I have with that is where would Andrew Jackson see antenna's? Plus the points found with this are a few thousand years old.
No bird points at all.
Bill

Hal, definitley time to read Vondonagan again! Ufology is alive and well!

Bill, the other day I was looking at a book I have here at the house, and took notice of several Indian drawn (art) faces of men. They too also have antennas sticking their heads.
The book is "The Old West" by Time Life, titled "The Indians" on page 159 there are 4 faces of men, the 2 faded ones on the left appears to have antennas sticking out of their heads. Also on page 141 there are pictures of men with 1 feather and 1 antenna sticking out of their heads. Page 118 and 119 shows more examples of far out alien like antennas. I mentioned poor old Jackson as an example in how an Indian could have come up with the idea in making himself a pendant with a face on it. Peace pendants actually go way back into ancient roman times.

My guess, is that the antennas may represent two braids of hair, horns, feathers, ext. Either way I think it is a fabulous rare item anyone would love to have in their collection. I hope that you would bring it to the Fish house someday for us to see! John

John, I stopped in at the local library yesterday ( Thats those old fashioned buildings where they keep the old compressed trees before they invented the Google )
Didn't find your book. They said " the old west" was a volumn of various books.
Whatever your looking at, does it have a volumn number or perhaps a secondary name of the book.?

Barring that, the pics you refer to, do they give a clue of the age ? If they are "just" refering to early
eighteen hundreds' thats not going to help on Bill's
very old ET

WOW I found a very similar piece I call mine Dino That's real crazy

The "Old West" collection by Time Life I believe contains 26 books, instead of volume numbers they use Titles of subject. To name a few.....The River men, The Texans, The Great Chiefs, The Indians.

I would think that Indians art symbols would pretty much have remain the same for thousands of years as to some generations of point styles have remained the same for thousands of years such as the Pedernales points and the Bulverde. As for trying to put a date on gorgets and pendant would be difficult, since it is generally thought among archaeologist that gorget and pendants were past on for many generations from father to son, grandson to great grandson and so on. As long as it is pre-Columbian, the significance of this pendant is not the age of it, but the rarity of it.

Bill did say that there was a extra long drilled Conch Shell Bead beside it. I have seen most types of these beads in the Pedernales layers 6000-2000B.P. John.

A very very unique, one-of-a-kind piece! I'm sure Dwain Rogers enjoyed papering that one.......