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Stone Stacks (Inukshuks / Inuksuks, etc.)

mindalai

Gone But Not Forgotten
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A few years ago I was on a bus from Israel to Jordan (to see Petra) and in the Jordanian desert I noticed lots and lots of small piles of stones. They were about a foot high or less and were just one stone on top of another. They looked quite precarious. They were out in the middle of nowhere and though we were on a road I don't think there was much through traffic. They didn't seem to be particularly near any of the tiny villages we went through and I couldn't see any pattern to where they were placed. There were far too many, and over far too large an area to be the work of some bored tourist. I kept seeing them all the way from the israeli border, right up to Petra. I can't remember how far that is but its a good few hours drive. I must have seen at least 100 of them.

I've always wondered who would stack stones like this in such a remote area, and what the significance is. I can't find anything on the net which is of any relevance. They looked similar to the picture at this link (to an Andy Goldsworth artwork):

http://www.nnbh.com/base/80/images/9062558380.jpg

Any ideas?
 
Perhaps it was Andy Goldsworthy?
He was the first person I thought of before I read all of your post.
 
It made me think of an inukshuk.

(Original link was dead. Replaced it with link to Wikipedia article.)
 
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Leaferne said:
It made me think of an inukshuk.

Building inukshuks at the roadside seems to have become quite a fad lately. Driving through northern Ontario, every place the road passes through a rock cut, there are inukshuks, sometimes dozens of them.
 
Shrines for people who have died by the road?
Cairns?
 
A bit prosaic but could they be road markers?

Not knowing about the roads in question it's hard to make any real judgement but especially out in shifting-sands type of terrain there would be a lot of sense in having some kind of recogniseable road marker. If the roads are relatively modern they could perhaps be markers from before the road was built.

Another possibility is that they are where people broke down and had a long boring wait for the AA to arrive...
 
naitaka said:
Leaferne said:
It made me think of an inukshuk.

Building inukshuks at the roadside seems to have become quite a fad lately. Driving through northern Ontario, every place the road passes through a rock cut, there are inukshuks, sometimes dozens of them.

Highway 11 between Fort Frances and about 30 km East of Atikokan is rife with them. I've detailed a strange experience regarding Inukshuk elsewhere on FTMB but here's the short version:

While on a fishing trip near Quetico, a couple of us stopped at an outfitter/gas station/convenience store/restaurant East of Atikokan to fuel our vehicle. While driving, we'd been speculating about the human-shaped stacks of stones we saw along the road. Once out of the vehicle the conversation was forgotten by all except, apparently, me.

I walked into the convenience store alone to buy a snack and, as I walked through the door, I began to ask the woman at the counter, "Excuse me..."

But, before I could finish the sentence, she replied, "They're called inukshuk, messenger men." And then followed up with something about needing guideposts.

At one point in the conversation, she was facing away from me with no mirrors or reflective surfaces in front of her. I glanced down at a book left open on her chair and she said, without turning around, "That might interest you since you're into science fiction and fantasy. It's a bit like Handmaid's Tale but more up your alley." Oddly, I'd not mentioned any interest in scifi or fantasy at all and was dressed in fishing attire.

There's much more but I'm going off-topic as it is.

At any rate, I often find myself feeling 'called home' by that region and have found myself idly sketching inukshuk in my sketchbook. Sometimes, when I'm tired or when I'm daydreaming, I'll see visions of walking through areas of moss-covered rocks with trees growing from the cracks, clear water and the last vestiges of melting snow. Very strange. And it all started with seeing the inukshuk.
 
Found this in a book I picked up while in Seattle:

An Inukshuk is a stone monument erected in the image of a human. It communicated direction in the harsh and desolate Arctic, sometimes stored caches of food and was a tool for survival. Symbolic of the act of an unselfish nomadic people, they were built by the Inuit as guideposts to make the way easier and safer for those who followed.

The difference we make today counts in all our tomorrows.
The hands of many and the efforts of the entire group were required to build these massive stone sculptures. The Inukshuk is a symbol of the human spirit. In the Inukshuk, each stone is a separate entity. But each supports, and is supported by the one above and the one below it. No one piece is any more or less important than another. The stones are secured through balance.

An Inukshuk is the result of a consensus of purpose, of focused action by a group united in its goal and labor. It recognizes our ability to succeed with others, where we would fail alone. It reminds us of our need to belong to something greater than ourselves. It reinforces our ability to create, communicate and commit to common goals. The Inukshuk reminds us of our interdependent responsibilities to invest our efforts today to direct a better way for all of us tomorrow.


They're pretty cool where ever you scope one..
 
Perhaps these symbols of ill-omen could cause accidents?

A veteran politician says an installation of traditional Inuit art outside Toronto airport resembles a symbol of ill-omen.

Piita Irniq says one of three inuksuks - stone cairns that are sometimes built in a human shape - outside Terminal One of Pearson International Airport was "put together wrong". He says its clearly defined legs and raised arms mean an "area where someone was killed or died by suicide," the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports.

He says they should be rebuilt under Inuit guidance or taken down. Mr Irniq's opinion carries weight, as he has been active in the political and cultural life of what is now the Nunavut territory of Canada's far north since the 1970s, and is himself a noted builder of inuksuks.

These cairns, also known as inukshuks, were originally used for orientation in the often featureless Arctic tundra. They are of great cultural significant to the Inuit, and one appears on the Nunavut flag.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-41427670
 
There may be a legs/pants thing going on, in Nunavut

54063615_9e22a0389c_b.jpg

This Inukshuk is also from around there...but it is an aboriginal construction, not geological.

I saw giant photo-posters of these, in Newfoundland, and only remembered about them today, because of the 'legs' picture
 
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Thanks, that's pretty impressive!
640px-Inuksugalait_Foxe-PI_2002-07-26.jpg

This is a picture of Inuksuk Point on Foxe Peninsula on Baffin Island in Nunavut. There are around 100 inuksuit built there.

I'm totally-confused by the statement in the wiki which says "There is some debate as to whether the appearance of human- or cross-shaped cairns developed in the Inuit culture before the arrival of European missionaries and explorers". I wasn't given that impression by anyone that these structures were anything other than ancient (however, every Inuit I've ever met was fairly-unconcerned about everything)
 
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