This is typical of the designs at this site – small, barely visible. I have many more photos like this but I posted only photos of the larger elements below.

The petroglyphs are hard to make out since the reflective desert varnish surfaces mean the sunlight really glares off of the boulders. There is a chain element on this stone, as well as some meander lines on the lower right portion of the boulder, which has split in several places since the petroglyphs were made.

A very rudimentary pecked and scratched petroglyph.

This element shows how unreliable desert varnish is as an indicator of petroglyph age. On the same rock surface part of the element is more heavily revarnished than the rest.

A well-made burst element. The boulder itself is barely two feet across.

You thought I posted a picture of a bare rock just to see if you were paying attention, didn’t you? No, there is a petroglyph on this rock – a rather interesting wagon-wheel type element, in fact. This design was often drawn in loose dirt with sticks during puberty rituals.

Another small boulder that has split since the petroglyphs were drawn on it. Though this area is within a protected wilderness there were some OHV tracks through it. Some people believe in “me, me and myself”, and do not give a hoot about anything else.

More basic designs on boulders. Interconnected circles is an extremely common petroglyph element, also sometimes found in pictographs, and the bisected circle is also found widely throughout the Great Basin and beyond. At some sites it is interpreted as a yoni – a fertility symbol that represents female genitalia.

Another boulder with a design on it that has since cracked in two. I’ve never been to a site where so many of the decorated boulders have since split into pieces.

Here is one that has more of the circle-and-lines designs that are so common in the area.

A Rectilinear grid / partial rake symbol, sprawling rather haphazardly across a small boulder.

Here is one of the ubiquitous rake symbols that is often interpreted to mean rain ( because hey, it looks like something Western cultures might use to show rain falling down ). This design is a common entoptic image, so it may be a depiction of what a person undertaking a vision quest might see. Datura and Native American tobacco are both common hallucinogenic plants that grow in the area.

As you can see by the wildflowers and greenery, we visited in spring as the desert came alive. Here is another bisected circle, but its odd placement meant that the artist couldn’t finish it because he or she ran out of rock!

This is one of the most intricate elements at the site. I’ll show you another picture next that shows the element at the bottom of the boulder more clearly. This picture is interesting because it shows that once again we have a rock that has cracked, and also because my foot in the bottom of the shot shows how tiny the boulder is.

Here’s the bigger picture I promised. The element to the right looks like it might be a stylized handprint but that theory falls flat when you count the fingers! I’ve seen something similar at the Red Rock Canyon site, where I thought it reminded me of the Kokopelli art found in Arizona. In this case the elements doesn’t show many pecks: unlike some of the others which on close inspection turned out to be made up of many closely spaced pecks, in this case it looks like the entire varnished surface was carefully removed to form the elements.

A faint cross / pointer type symbol.

A bright sunburst symbol right next to a rake symbol with wavy tines. Neither element shows much revarnishing. The rake element is often thought to represent rain, but as discussed earlier, that is not necessarily what it means. In the background you can see another boulder with designs. And again, this boulder cracked since the petroglyphs were made! I wonder whether there was a rare weather occurrence, such as a brutally hot morning or day that ended in a sudden cold front blowing rain and hail into the area, that would have caused many of these rocks to suddenly crack due to the temperature extremes.

Just below the rain or shine panel is a very curious arrangement of pecked dots. They seem to form another rake symbol, almost. I’ve never seen this kind of design before. The closest I can think of is a little element hidden in a crack on the Volcanic Tablelands, at the Curious Crack site.

A strange little design that reminds me a little of a set of bagpipes, but is more likely to represent a shaman’s headdress. Similar lines can be seen in the Kokopelli art often found in Arizona.

The little boulder that was visible in the background of the rain / shine overview shot.

We found this boulder on our way back to our vehicles. I bet you saw the circular element right away, but did you also spot the other element, camouflaged by desert varnish?

Another abstract design nestled on a boulder.