Tourists in Hawaii Accidentally Discovered Ancient Petroglyphs
A stroke of luck on the beach
image:
http://thumbs.media.smithsonianmag.com//filer/17/bf/17bf9b00-58b5-4e69-919a-1b24b51aad3a/waianae-petro1jpg.jpg__800x600_q85_crop.jpgpetroglyph 1
(Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources)
By Danny Lewis
smithsonian.com
August 12, 2016
Watching the sunset from a beach in Hawaii is a memorable experience for anyone. But for most people, the moment doesn’t include stumbling on a set of petroglyphs. But that's what happened last month to a couple of Texan tourists visiting island.
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As the sun was setting, Lonnie Watson and Mark Louviere were walking on the sand when they spied a large figure carved into the soft rock beneath the sand. “For some reason there was a beam of light…just a beam…it landed right on one of them and for some reason I just turned my head,” Watson said in a statement.
After a brief investigation, they discovered a set of large petroglyphs stretching 60 feet down the beach, Eileen Kinsella reports for artnet News. The humanoid figures were up to five feet in length, and were likely carved by native Hawaiians over 400 years ago.
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