We don't know what the engravers thought about anything, really, just that their bekiefs were particularly robust to spend hours and hours with imperfect tools scratching these rocks. I try to reconcile the accurate, well-finished stone moulds, for copper, with the rock art that must have been made at more or less the same time, which is raggy and 'all over the place'. One made sober and the other made while intoxicated would explain it, maybe.

I've a finely carved stone, that I mention from time to time. It's been buried and dug up recently, by a digger, and so is not eroded much, just chipped in a few places. I showed it to a venerable rock art expert, recently, after lots of palaver and arranged. He looked at it and said 'it can't be carved because it's got undercuts' - I said 'it can't be fossilised because it's got undercuts'. This stone would move things along if it were allowed in - but it's not.