July 15-18: Discovering petroglyphs and pictographs

Yesterday we hiked a couple of miles on a trail off Kane Creek Road about 4 miles west of Moab.  The road follows the Colorado River through the “Portal” entrance into Canyonlands and “Behind the Rocks” wilderness areas, before turning up Kane Creek Canyon.  This is a long canyon that is part of the Colorado River drainage.  An unpaved road runs up and then down the canyon for at least 20 miles.  The road has no guardrails and is sometimes a single-lane.  Glad we have four-wheel drive this time.

We returned to this area again and again over the first two weeks because it is rich in hundreds of rock art sites.  Some sites are well marked, but others required some digging in obscure books and internet sources.  We became members of the “Climb Utah” and the Utah Rock Art Research Association to help provide us with suggestions and directions.  Even with directions, finding trails and locating sites is not an easy proposition.  At least our GPS and compass help us to avoid getting lost.

One set of petroglyphs often means that there are others nearby.  So we explore nearby canyon walls with binoculars.

As we approach each panel of ancient petroglyphs, we keep in mind that many of these sites may have been quite sacred.  Even if other sites may have had more pragmatic functions, they put us directly in touch with the mind and imaginations of an ancient civilization.

The precise manner in which the petroglyphs and pictographs were made indicates that they were important to their creators.  Some rock art is mere doodling.  What we are finding is a form of graphic art that was meticulous, creative, expressive, and required technical skill.  Some of these panels are hundreds of feet long and twenty feet above ground level in inaccessible (to us) places.

On these three days along backcountry trails we found a number of unique figures.   The ones we will initially share with you are:  “Moab Man,” the “Mastodon,” the Owl, the Freemont masked figure, the “birthing rock,” and a couple of typical Bighorn Sheep.  First, the sheep:

We have seen a great variety of Bighorn Sheep petroglyphs--rectangular bodies, fat bodies, stick legs, thicker legs, horns set at different angles.  The number attests to their importance in the cultures.

Is it really a “Mastodon/Mammoth”?  That would be 10,000 years after their extinction.  Although they once roamed this landscape, as had the dinosaurs, could a memory or image still reside with the Anasazi people?  Strange in any case.

The “Owl” required two separate visits to locate, as we could not pick up the trail the first time.  We had to do a lot of climbing up the cliff face.  I do not believe there is any other similar petroglyph anywhere else.

Moab Man is what is called an “anthropomorph.”  There are thousands of these sorts of figures in Utah, but no one figure is like any other.  Sort of like snowflakes.  And the image persists over centuries of rock artistry.  Are they humans, imaginative beings, masked ceremonial leaders, shamans, or what?  Part of the puzzle.

Moab Man is an Anasazi (ancient Puebloan) figure that welcomes people to Moab.  (Actually, he and his companions overlook the Moab Golf Course in the Spanish Valley.  Perhaps they were Leroy Neimanesque duffers or simply spectators waving at the golfers below.)

The austere Fremont masked figure is from a different cultural group and is next to the Owl.  No one knows what the connection is.

Finally, the “Birthing Rock” is an ancient and weathered figure on a boulder along Kane Creek Road.  There are petroglyphs on all four sides of the boulder.  Whether this is really a birthing scene and what it might mean is another puzzle.  But it is unique.

I threw in the strange birdlike creature and the huge “bear” petroglyphs as extras.  Notice the three hunters with bow and arrow aimed at the bear.  Hunting was a group activity, involving lots of time “on the road” and dangerous.