Onward with our exploration! This wash contains numerous petroglyphs and it is easy to feel overwhelmed and start marching down the wash without playing close attention, so we’re taking it slowly and contemplating each panel as we come across it. Remember, these petroglyphs took several hours to make. There was intent behind making them, so they had meaning.
There’s a little bit of a gap before we strike the next set of petroglyphs – and we find them by looking back, not ahead!These boulders have sparsely scattered but well-made elements. Towards the center is one that looks like a half-shield design, and to the left of it, one more that looks like half of an anthropomorph.The “half-shield” up close. It does look like the intent was to continue completing the lower half starting from the right, but the pecks suddenly spreads and stops.Wait, what I thought was a possible anthropomorph from some distance away may just be a line with a dot up top, and some tricky shadows on the boulder!The half-shield is just visible to the right in this picture. Around the corner, an abstract, almost “medicine-bag” like element sits prominently on a small surface just above ground level.A little further up the wash, which is still lush with tough desert vegetation and opportunistic weeds, we find a delicate little panel. Besides the main panel there are also a couple of circles down towards the ground … and one more element that I apparently did not spot when I was there, or I would have taken a close-up of it. The desert glare off of the rock must have hidden it. Do you see it?Look in the right center … see the scratched shield design? Wow. It is quite different than the rest of the elements in this area.A close-up of the main panel. These elements are all pecked. The fishbone design looks well-crated. And unlike the earlier panels we saw in the previous post, these all look like they were made around the same time. No uneven revarnishing or differing techniques here. Also note that the fishbone element just barely crosses the cracks in the rock face. I wonder if the rock cracked after these elements were made. It is not usual for petroglyphs to jump across cracks, but the cracks themselves are more varnished than the petroglyphs, so it does seem that in this case the petroglyphs came after.The zoomorph-like element below this panel.The “staff” to the left looks lightly thicker and a little more rubbed as opposed to pecked.The circular elements down below. There may be two very faint elements to the right of them as well – not something that is visible until you get closer.Yep, I think there are some faint elements in between these and the little dumbbell shape that rounds out the panel.The little panel we looked at is just visible right of center in the picture, below the large green weed halfway up the outcropping. Our focus os now on the panel over to the left, on the curved stone.Boy, the sun really glares off of this one! It’s an impossible task to get the whole panel clearly in view this time of day.It took a small aperture and quite a bit of post-processing to get this shot dim enough to make out the elements. I like the dynamic, swirly nature of the little bisected circle in the upper center.An odd little element, just touching the crack down below.These pecked elements in the lower part of the panel are less varnished, and are the same color even though the boulder behind them are varnished in different shades, so I’m wondering if they’re a later addition.Some elements down close to ground level.Close-up view of the elements on the left side.A nice rake element on a boulder facing the wash. Down below is a much damaged boulder with thickly pecked lines. Just above that, a datura is starting to wilt in the warm spring weather. The datura is interesting – definitely a known hallucinogenic, and known to have been used to assist in vision quests. Maybe those thick, swirly petroglyphs were made under the influence of one of that datura’s ancestors.Rake and friends up close. I think there’s a rather faint fishbone in the lower right of this panel.Some of the elements are quite faint and hard to see. Here is another fishbone element, also faint, but well-pecked. That is turning out to be a rather common theme around here! Also note the faint bisected circle to the far left center in this photo.Close-up view of the fishbone. It is quite well-made.Here is the bisected circle as well. It will be hard to see during certain times of day.This boulder sitting in the wash seems to have some rather rudimentary elements on it, but it interests me all the same because it looks like we have overlaid elements of different shades here as well, which suggests elements made quite some time apart.A close-up view of our elements. That diamond-like motif is definitely darker, and overlaid with some lighter petroglyphs.
It is time to lift our eyes up off of the floor of the wash, and look ahead! There are more boulders just ahead, so surely there are more petroglyphs as well.
