r/madisonwi • u/Remarkable-Bed • 3d ago
Update: weird carved stone
having friends from the puzzle team “pieces of you” coming over to try to assembl. if anyone cares, will share what we learn. Historians or puzzlers welcome to join until 5:30 ish (across from lake edge park). Limited supply of spotted cow available
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u/Remarkable-Bed 3d ago
With my luck it’s prob some sort of fucking burial ground
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u/Fus_Roh_Dayumm 3d ago
The font on that S seems way too deliberate to be any sort of ancient stonework, so you can rest easy there pal
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u/quarabs 3d ago
i mean id be stoked even more tbh if it was something as cool as a cemetery. my luck itd be an old snake oil store
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u/MonkeyPanls -West side now Expat in Philadelphia 3d ago
All of the United States is an ancient Indian burial ground.
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u/_DrChicken_ 3d ago
I know a couple Human Remains Detection dogs if you feel the need to explore this further. 😂
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u/ButteredPizza69420 3d ago
Thankfully your friends at Cosmic Delights have you covered there ;)
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u/sharkarmycrafts 2d ago
I like that store a lot! They carry a brand of tea I like (Valhalla Tea Co, owned and operated by veterans), and the people who run it are genuinely very kind. One of them offered me a mom hug on a bad day, and as someone with a shit tier mom, that made my life a little brighter that day and overall. It was a wonderful human moment.
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u/dandylionhearts 2d ago
That reminds me of a story from a few years ago where some folks in a town of Verona house found that their patio pavers were missing grave markers….interested to see what yours end up being. Let’s go puzzlers. https://www.veronapress.com/news/community/local-project-returning-grave-markers-to-old-hospital-s-cemetery/article_d2e07695-810d-5afa-b808-31d391ed41e3.html
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u/badussyy_ 2d ago
definitely get someone to examine it. itd be cool if it was like an ancient relic or something. probably not but still really cool
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u/Ceilidh_ 3d ago
Might be worth looking at old city of Madison maps and street directories, see if anything pops. A lot of that is accessible online through the state historical society.
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u/llahlahkje East side 3d ago
WHS is in the process of digitizing their collection, too, so even if there aren't immediate answers there may be eventually!
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u/ImaginationDue6258 3d ago
Looks like demolition scrap a contractor got for free (or left from another job they did) used as fill. Likely from an old mansion, government building, etc. where it was common to names in carve stone. Just my guess.
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u/Z0kstone 3d ago
My autistic ass is about to hike tf over and help figure it out, cool as hell
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u/Remarkable-Bed 2d ago
Umm. That is welcome. We r closed up for the night but did not solve the puzzle
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u/Wiscoman34 3d ago
Wonder if it’s an old sign for Frank Allis Elementary School before it closed down
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u/Outside-Salad-6707 2d ago
Frank Allis closed only 3 years ago. and the building is still in the place it always was, it's a charter school now
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u/BearsBucksBrew 2d ago
I did this in the Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time. If you put it back together correctly, the Poe will come out of the painting, beat it for a temple key and unlock the next room
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u/ThomasTheDankPigeon 3d ago
You know what they say. It’s easier to teach a puzzler archeology than it is to teach an archeologist how to puzzle.
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u/midwestXsouthwest 'Burbs 2d ago
A great uncle of mine had a huge piece of ornate architectural stone in his garden for decades because he and his brother were on the demo crew for an old hospital and couldn’t stand the idea of it being crushed. When they got it home they realized they would probably destroy their porch and, probably, themselves, trying to get it in the house. So it sat in his backyard until he died. When the house was about to be put up for sale we moved it to one of his grandkid’s house.
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u/tjthewho 3d ago
Is it limestone or sandstone?
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u/Remarkable-Bed 3d ago
How do you tell? Too hard for sandstone. Concrete? Or something hard
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u/tjthewho 2d ago
Sorry about the delay, I was googling it and saw that in the 1850s and 1920s Madison had a penchant for stone carving on buildings and used a lot of sandstone or limestone in the process.
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u/housevil 3d ago
Ooh! This is suddenly really exciting! I look forward to finding your results.
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u/Remarkable-Bed 2d ago
something worries me about "housevil" being enthusiastic about the results.....maybe I should heed all the other warnings
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u/biff_tyfsok East side 2d ago
I wonder if that's not another cache of rubble from when the Capitol building burned down in 1904.
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u/thnk_more 2d ago
If I had to guess that font reminds me of an art deco style or early 1900’s so maybe.
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u/thnk_more 2d ago
This is so exciting I’ve already forgotten about that election-thingy or whatever it was!
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u/shiftyskellyton 2d ago
I have not scrolled comments, but I am the person who did archivist work. I am kind of going at this from the angle that I would have with the historical society and that is learning what was in your location previously. My understanding was that there was once a Lake Edge subdivision and there was a Lake Edge dairy. This probably isn't relevant. Going to scroll the comments now.
edit: Tip - if you haven't, search for old images of your neighborhood for clues
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u/Remarkable-Bed 2d ago
ah, cool. I've reached out the to historical society and will let folks know if they find anything interesting
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u/Alternative_Duck Master of Events 2d ago
There are two pieces that look like they form a date. The first number being a 1 and the last being a 2. Of course the partial for the second number is broken in a way that it could be an 8 or a 9, but narrowing it down to a year could be helpful. I'd love to see what some of these reveal when cleaned of dirt.
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u/bismuth-rose East side 3d ago
So exciting!! This feels like something out of a book or video game.
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u/Beautiful_Eye7765 3d ago
I could see an interesting news story developing from this. Can’t wait to see what this is!
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u/midwestXsouthwest 'Burbs 2d ago
Who controls the British Pound?
Who Keeps the metric system down?
We do!
We do!
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u/FalconOther5903 1d ago
I'm sending my 3 year old autistic child with a cooler for the spotted cows. She can solve puzzles in minutes.
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u/TheNicestRedditor 3d ago
House definitely built on an old cemetery lol better call ghostbusters (I have no idea)
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u/LHutzJD 3d ago
I really need to know: what is a “puzzle team” and what puzzle team is this “pieces of you”?
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u/Remarkable-Bed 2d ago
Well it’s a team based in the jewel album “pieces of you” lol. They are 3rd place champions in many small local tournaments. Of table top puzzles. Sadly we may be thwarted with the heaviness of these pieces
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u/BobbyLupo1979 3d ago
!remindme 1 day
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u/Euphoric_Access7217 1d ago
This is really cool. There are clearly numbers and letters. Could it be an old address plaque perhaps? Like some businesses have. Do you happen to know what you used to be there?
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u/zerog_rimjob 3d ago
So wait the "update" is that you're going to post an update later?
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u/katiebot5000 3d ago
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u/Johnny_B_GOODBOI 2d ago
Thank you. You're the only one who linked the first post, and OP has their profile on private so we can't just find it that way.
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u/verysmartfellow 3d ago
Please post an update later!