July 19: More about petroglyphs

My error of omission:  I should have put yesterday’s petroglyphic images into a better context.  I do take extensive field notes on each site, so I have no excuse.

The Owl petroglyph is about 3 feet tall; the Fremont figure next to it is about six feet tall.  Both are on a cliff face about 300 or 400 feet above the canyon floor above a ledge about 3 feet wide.  They were above my head, 10-15 feet above the ledge.  That meant that the ancient “artist” had to stand on a ladder to produce them.  (Were others holding the ladder and tools?  Chanting?)

My guesstimate on the bear petroglyph is that it is 54 inches across.  (I was climbing a narrow ledge to get to it.  No, I did not take a yardstick with me.)  The little men with bows and arrows “hunting” it (if that is what was intended) were at most a tenth the size of the bear.  That’s animal respect.

The Birthing image was about 5 feet long on a very large boulder with surrounding images on all four sides.

By contrast, the little bird-man image we sent was only 6-8 inches tall, despite the incredible detail of the figure.

You should notice that these images, like most in the Moab area, are fully pecked (or chiseled).  That takes a lot more artistic effort than simply scratching an “outline” of a figure, as one founds at so many other petroglyphic sites in New Mexico and Arizona.

You should know that the images were produced by a “hammer and chisel” method (a hammerstone against a hard, sharp stone—these were neo-lithic peoples).  It takes a lot of skill to produce such images with precise lines and very even “pecking.”  The big figures took hundreds, if not thousands, of precise and evenly delivered blows.  We have photos of many weathered petroglyphs that are so faint as to barely be seen.  Yet the circular chisel marks are clearly visible when one gets within inches of the surface.

 (Taking rubbings of such marks is a strict no-no.)

This was not a “trail” since the ledge fell off a hundred yards later.  Why go to such efforts?  I will share my hypotheses at a later time.