UKH

Some lovely examples of "ancient" stone carvings here (ancient in inverted commas because they're reportedly only 1 to 2 thousand years old, although they'd be physically and culturally separated from Western influence at this time). Behold, some emoji's - Old skool...

I like the Cubist looking one.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-67204409

I love the timelessness of some of these things, though my examples are part of Western influence - a couple from Hadrian's Wall showing that some things never change.

https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/872

https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/1008

"The phallus of Marcus Septimius" transcending time itself.

Indeed. In Roman culture, being remembered 50 or so years after your death was an ambition for some. I doubt Marcus Septimius ever thought he and his phallus would be remembered some 1900 years later!

I've tried looking for the Gelt inscriptions before on occasion but never seen them. It's a lovely section of river and some of the big sandstone quarries are impressive. I've seen several Roman willies on Hadrian's Wall and there's a big one in Vindolanda Quarry which is pretty obvious.

Has anyone worked out what cup and ring markings mean yet? I've seen them in different parts of Britain so I suppose they must have meant something to large parts of the population back then.

Early representations of Black Holes.  Amazing what the ancients knew (source - von Daniken)

You've been watching too many episodes of Ancient Aliens.

please!  I read the original von Daniken books in the 1970s when they were doing the rounds at school! Respect the source!

One of the Sunday scumsheets had the headline "Was God an Astronaut" running for a while

Yes, I too remember the press coverage Von Daniken got back then. Pretty soon, actual archaeologists and historians pointed out the gaping chasms in his claims. The presence of things like 'Ancient Aliens' today shows that there are still droves of people who believe this kind of thing without critical analysis. I did actually buy some of Von Daniken's books as a kid but soon realised what a con artist he was.

It seems very tame and reassuringly harmless by modern standards of what droves of people believe without critical analysis.