page_title: Dighton Rock
section_title: Depths of inscriptions
hierarchical_section_title: Dighton Rock / Depths of inscriptions
caption_attribution_description: English: Seth Eastman at Dighton Rock; Horatio B. King (American, 1820 - 1889); July 7, 1853; Daguerreotype; 8.9× 12.1 cm (3 1/2 × 4 3/4 in.); 84.XT.182
context_page_description: The Dighton Rock is a 40-ton boulder, originally located in the riverbed of the Taunton River at Berkley, Massachusetts. The rock is noted for its petroglyphs, carved designs of ancient and uncertain origin, and the controversy about their creators. In 1963, during construction of a coffer dam, state officials removed the rock from the river for preservation. It was installed in a museum in a nearby park, Dighton Rock State Park. In 1971 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
context_section_description: Although Mather described these as deeply cut, a statement which has been repeated to the present day, early reports suggested that this was not exactly the case. DelaBarre wrote:
  One thing is certain, that former descriptions of the depth of the incisions cannot be used as evidence for any change. The first who describes them calls them "deeply engraved" in 1690; but Cotton Mather had never seen the rock, so far as we know, and this statement of his is doubtless on a par with his other statement that the characters are on "a mighty Rock." Greenwood gives the first reliable description, in 1730. He definitely says that the "indentures are not very considerable," and his drawing and his other statements prove that he had as much difficulty in making out the real characters as has ever been experienced since then. Even on the lowest part of the face, which alone does show evident signs of much wear, Mather's draughtsman, and Greenwood, and their next followers, were even less successful in making out apparent characters than have been some later observers. Sewall in 1768 and Kendall in 1807 made definite statements to the effect that the greater part of the lines were so much effaced as to make their decipherment impossible, or wholly subject to the fancy.
caption: Daguerrotype (mirror-reversed) image of Seth Eastman on Dighton Rock (c. 1853)
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