WOW!

OK - We're just going to call this
* Discovery Week in Kosrae! *

A series of truly amazing and completely unrelated discoveries have taken place this week.

Stone Face, Tofol Kosrae

Felicia Beardsley's 2006 project is to excavate some of the features found during her 2004 exploration and mapping of the King's Mound area above Tofol. Click for more information on the 2004 project.

This week she and her team suddenly begun discovering faces carved in the basalt stone.

This is one of Bruce's photos of the first stone face discovered at the Tofol site.


On weekends Bruce and Felicia have been exploring the mangrove channels looking for more ancient sites and artifacts. They came across this "statue" a couple of weeks ago. It is situated in a basalt wall near a ancient canoe landing site.

Here are two more of Bruce's photos, the first showing the statue in line with the rest of the rock wall and the second a close up of the statue.

Statue in Place Statue Closeup

What is so amazing about these discoveries is that there is no record of stone carving on Kosrae or in Micronesia, so a completely new view of the ancient Kosraean world may be emerging.


This week we also were very fortunate to have two environmental scientists staying with us. George Roderick and Rosemary Gillespie are primarily investigating spiders living in the cloud forest. They spent one night at the Mt. Finkol summit and discovered at least 3 previously undiscribed long-jawed spiders.

They have generously given me permission to use the following photos which they took during their "hunting" trip.

At the Summit View From Finkol Summit
Long-Jawed Spider Long-Jawed Spider
Long-Jawed Spider

And FINALLY, yesterday morning we found a dugong on our beach. Unfortunately the 2.5 meter long animal was dead, apparently injured in the surf during the night. Dugongs, a marine mammal and a relative of the manatee, are not common in Micronesia and currently only known to be in Palau. The addition of Kosrae to the dugong range is a very significant event.

Dugong on Kosrae Village Beach

Photo by Steve Palik

I wonder what new discoveries are waiting to be found next week??
If you would like more information or to contact the scientists involved, please send me a message.
Thanks, Katrina