A quarried soapstone bowl rock can be visited at the Cherokee County Historical Museum in Murphy.   This boulder was moved from its original location, a bowl quarry near the Nottely River. 1 - October 2022

"Turtle Rock", in front of the museum. Two bowl preforms are visible in this photo.   The rock is very hard, making it a poor choice for manufacturing bowls.   Due to the harsh sun, I only shot one photo.

I had a report that gave the location of the quarry. The coordinates were off, but I eventually found it.

Bowl Quarry, Rock A, with bowl preform

This angle gives a better view of another bowl preform (right) that was in the very early stage of manufacture.

Bowl Quarry, Rock B, with early preform on top.

View of Rock B showing a bowl removal scar on the bottom.

Rock B - bowl removal scar

Bowl Quarry, Rock C, with bowl removal scar. The right side of this boulder also has a bowl preform in the early stages of production.

Rock C - bowl removal scar

Bowl Quarry, Rock D. I'm not absolutely sure, but this may be another start on a bowl preform.

Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) on one of the boulders.

I revisited the site with Alan and Noah in March 2023

I mostly explored some of the talc mining relics in the area, but took another photo of the large bowl rock.

All Text & Images: Copyright 2022.