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Figures pecked into lava.
Also known as: Hawaii rock carving
The Hawaiian rock carvings of human figures, and the conventions by which they vary.
Are pecked into lava surfaces across the Hawaiian islands.
Contexts: History, Public information
The human figures vary systematically — stick limbs, triangular torsos, muscled forms — and the variation is used by researchers to sequence sites in time, so a stylistic difference does chronological work.
Contexts: History, Public information
Later figures include sails and horses, which date those panels to after European contact and make the corpus a record of change rather than a fixed body.
Contexts: History, Public information
Human figures pecked into smooth lava, ranging from stick-limbed outlines to triangular-torso forms, together with circles, cupules and later figures of animals and sails.