In the Brisbane Water National Park above Woy Woy Bay at Kariong there are hundreds of Egyptian like symbols carved onto the walls of a rock crevice , first discovered in the 1970's the strange carvings have fuelled a variety of debates about their authenticity.
After authorities were first alerted around 1983 , the carvings were investigated by a variety of experts and deemed as poorly done fakes done by a practical joker for reasons unknown. Some of the symbols did represent Egyptian letters and words but there were no connected sentences that made sense and ample evidence that the work was less than 50 years old.
Some of the symbols are not Egyptian and the work is littered with basic mistakes in the Egyptian language.
It is most likely that the carvings were done by locals sometime between 1975 and 1984 , the carvings may have been the work of one person or a small team and may have been added to by other persons over time.
Location
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The glyphs are located near Bambara Rd , Kariong , New South Wales , Central Coast , Australia just north of Sydney , because of the proximity they are sometimes called the Gosford Glyphs or Woy Woy Glyphs / Hieroglyphs
The site is located within the boundary of Brisbane Waters National Park , adjacent to the site are privately owned undeveloped land holdings , recently a large parcel of this land was bought by the local government for inclusion into the park.The area is just a short distance from the suburb of Kariong along Woy Woy Road , Lyre Trig Station is located nearby in the national park.
The whole Kariong area is home to many hundreds of Aboriginal sites , carvings are abundant on the many flat sandstone platforms , also rock shelters , cave paintings and stone arrangements.
The carving site is located on the easterly edge of a crumbling sandstone plateau in a cleft formed by a large sandstone block that has split in two over time , the fractured stone has formed 2 walls on which most of the carvings appear.
About 50 metres away from this site on the same sandstone cliff edge there is another small group of carvings.
Access to the site is via Bambara Rd , a short walk down the closed road to the site takes less than 20 minutes , this road was open to the general public up until 1999 but was closed due to the dumping of rubbish and car bodies in the area.
The Discovery
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| Central Coast Express Weekender December 1983 |
The carvings first came to public attention in a front page article in the local newspaper in 1983 , a man looking for his lost dog stumbled onto the site and alerted the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
The carvings had also been noticed by a Gosford Council surveyor around 1975 , he also revisited the site over a 5 year period and noticed more work being added. The site was also known by many locals.After investigation by the NPWS experts and the head of Egyptology at Macquarie University Sydney , the carvings were found to be very amateur attempts at recreating Egyptian symbols that spelt out nothing of sense.
Site photographs taken by the NPWS in 1983 clearly shows that some of the work had only been recently done.
Apart from the sightings of the glyphs being created in the late 70's by the council surveyor , no reliable report of the glyphs exist prior to this date. All other supposed sightings at earlier dates are un checkable and based on hearsay.
In 1984 NPWS Ranger Neil Martin caught an old European man in the crevice adding to the glyphs , he was let off with a warning and the ranger confiscated a Sidchrome chisel he was using.
No further action was taken by the NPWS who monitored the site afterwards and noted more carvings and attempts at modifying and creating underground chambers in the natural crevices in the mid 90's.
Having established that the carvings were not done by Egyptians 4500 years ago and more likely to be less than 30 years old it was left up to speculation on whom or who was responsible.
