Ancient Paw Prints on Tiles

[digitS']

Part of the fun I have walking around in neighborhoods is finding the prints in the olde concrete sidewalks. I get to the street corner and it says that the sidewalk was laid 100 years ago and I've just stepped over the prints from a child walking on the fresh concrete!

Or, the very common dog foot prints! Once, I came across the prints of horse shoes! But, here is a story about a dog and a tile maker, nearly 2,000 years ago.

Archaeologists Find Ancient Puppy Paw Prints on Roman Tiles (LINK)

Steve

 

[Smart Red]

Kind of neat! I've had that happen, of course. Usually a cat or a squirrel, but occasionally a couple of neighborhoods with tire tracks in the nearly dry cement.

 

[thistlebloom]

That's a fun find! I like the idea of finding a childs hand prints in a sidewalk laid 100 years ago. It leads to imagining lots of scenarios.

When my family all lived in San Diego's East county, my dh installed a saltillo tile floor throughout my parents home. Commonly referred to as "Tecate" tiles, because they were made in Tecate Mexico. We took my mom to the tile makers down in Tecate to pick up the tile and she purposely selected several tiles with incidental paw prints in them. Kind of a fun thing to have on your floor.

 

[digitS']

The tile company must lay those tiles to the side, in case customers might want them . . .

I'm not sure if I have ever even seen squirrel prints. I don't think it's possible here. When gardeners complain about tree squirrel problems, I always think they must be talking about Fox squirrels. We don't have those here but 100 years ago, we probably didn't have the eastern grey squirrel. Native squirrels were just trying to get away from us. I'm trying to think where or if I 've seen bird tracks.

The horse shoe prints were so precisely done, they might have been done by a child rather than a horse. After that thought occurred to me I went back to see if I could find any evidence of a child. Unfortunately, that section had been taken out for a driveway, not a year after I passed that way!

Steve, walking thru time

 

[thistlebloom]

The tile company must lay those tiles to the side, in case customers might want them . . .

I'm not sure if I have ever even seen squirrel prints. I don't think it's possible here. When gardeners complain about tree squirrel problems, I always think they must be talking about Fox squirrels. We don't have those here but 100 years ago, we probably didn't have the eastern grey squirrel. Native squirrels were just trying to get away from us. I'm trying to think where or if I 've seen bird tracks.

The horse shoe prints were so precisely done, they might have been done by a child rather than a horse. After that thought occurred to me I went back to see if I could find any evidence of a child. Unfortunately, that section had been taken out for a driveway, not a year after I passed that way!

Steve, walking thru time

It was very interesting going to the tile makers. Tecate is, or at least it was, 30+ years ago just a tiny little dusty Mexican village. The tile makers had their operation mostly outdoors, with rows and rows of tile laid out in the sun drying before being fired. The dogs are ubiquitous, and just seem to wander around everywhere, so of course there are a good portion of tiles with paw prints.

I remember picking out the tile as being an enjoyable time, with a lot of shared laughs with the folks on the manufacturing end.

 

[lesa]

I think they featured that Mexican tile place on "This Old House" once. Cat and dog prints were available. Too fun! One time when I was painting, my cat walked on the wet windowsill and made prints on the hardwood floor...I didn't wipe them off. They lasted quite a few years, and brought a smile to my face!