How Burrows Cave Stones Compare with the Real Thing?
By Wayne May
Skeptics of the portrait-stones retrieved from Burrows Cave (see "Found: The Indians' Astronomical "Key," by John H. Bailey III, this issue) point out that many of these objects are far too crudely executed to have been produced by ancient Old World artists, who worked according to much higher standards of craftsmanship.
In contrary evidence, we present professionally certified artifacts from Pharaonic Egypt for sale through New York's Sadigh Gallery. Many of the dynastic statuettes are far less finely manufactured than many Burrows Cave items. Also, depictions of persons in profile from ancient Egypt are indistinguishable from Burrows Cave portrait-stones, save only that the former are executed in local sandstone. Comparison of both the lesser artifacts and the very similar profiles of men or women found both in Illinois and Egypt demonstrate that the almost identical practice of depicting individuals on roughly cut stone was known in the Nile Valley. Its repetition among the Burrows Cave collection underscores the credibility of the thousands of similarly illustrated black stones from southern Illinois.
The Egyptian sandstone portraits are for sale from Sadigh Gallery.