Silent Symbols

Bill Bensley , 2025

Acrylic on canvas
120 × 120 cm , 47.2 × 47.2 inch

In land or south from Karma Bay about one kilometer, we stopped at a flat stone plateau called Eriosh that looked as though it had once been a river bed and a village at the same time. There was absolutely nobody there. No signs or fences. Nothing there besides these 1,500 year old mysterious symbols, most buried under a thin layer of silt. The stone floor was worn smooth and was full of primitive markings and holes where wooden columns for homes may have been erected. I drew everything I saw in the 1000 square meters that I inspected and amalgamated all of the visible markings on to this one drawing, in a much denser fashion than what was visible in the field.
Many markings like the stars, the feet, and the combs? were repetitive but I only saw one buffalo with a very strange nose and one face that was straining to speak to me. Clearly this rather spooky place was of some importance to an ancient Socotran society.
My post trip research suggests that while European anthropologists have recorded all 38 types of markings, nobody has put forth an hypothesis of what they might have meant. The details remain a mystery.

$6,000.00
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