>>Have you heard of such a find? I would like to obtain a photo of such
grafitti.

Thank you for your help.

John<<

John,

My wife and I are actually the proud stewards of four examples of just
such graffiti.

When we were dismantling the 1815 timber framed church we saved and are
converting (slowly) into our new home we discovered one of the timbers
had two markings on it made with dividers (which were used by early
tradesmen to do layout of course). The one was three circles
intersecting to form a perfect triangle, the other a large circle with
twelve overlapping arcs inside that form a perfect six pedaled flower.

Obviously we were quite exited by the discovery, so we started looking
much more carefully at the timbers while we were pulling nails and
readying them for transport. As luck would have it we found one more
timber with markings on it, but these were quite different. The first
timber was a header over a large window opening and had the markings on
the outside face. The second was actually a sill timber at the bottom of
a different large window opening and the marks were on the top.

As we studied the marks on the second timber it became obvious there
were two alternative bell tower timber framing patterns scratched into
the timber with an awl. It kind of made the hair on my neck stand up
when I realized how likely it was that some timber framer 185+ years ago
had stood at that wind sill and decided how he was going to frame the
bell tower. Maybe he was taking to the head of the congregation, or the
architect?

I talked to Jan Lewandoski about our discovery and he was much more
impressed with the awl scratched timber drawings than the divider marks.
He postulated that the three circles were the timber framer's signature
and the spirograph flower was the sign of the sun which indicated the
south facing side of the church frame. He agreed with our suggesting
about the sill timber markings and said that was probably the rarest
graffiti we would ever see.

I have yet to try to photograph them in place, but if there is an
interest I could give it a snap shot (digital of course).

Rudy

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>