This is a medium-sized site in the Owens Valley — which is known more for its sprawling petroglyph sites — but nonetheless features some interesting pictograph sites that often mirror imagery found across the eastern Sierra.
The boulder itself would certainly feel right at home anywhere in the Sierra, being the typical granite boulder found in the region.
Let’s see what we found!
The pictograph boulder. It sits in a grouping of boulders, but this is the only one with any trace of pictographs on it. This side has the reddish coloring often found on granite boulders. None of the other boulders in the vicinity has any such surfaces. I wonder if that background was preferred for pictographs.The pictograph panel. Unfortunately a lot of it isn’t well-protected, with a large area to the left, as well as the leftmost part of the taller panel, much weathered by runoff. It still looks fascinating though, so let’s break out DStretch.Ah, there we go! Quite a nice panel here. Stylistically it seems somewhat different than another pictograph panel in the vicinity ( Pandit Plain ) but there are echoes of elements at other sites on the western slopes of the Sierra here … Hospital Rock is one that springs to mind, and the snake outlines are also present at Atomic Man and Bow.Let’s start off with the panel on the right. Here’s a natural color view of it.There are a lot of elements here. Over on the right the best preserved elements show up very well with DStretch. The “snake” element here is filled in with black pigment that faded much faster than the red pigment did. The “snake” in the lower left is not as well preserved. There are also several “fishbone” elements – one below the first snake, one in the lower right center, one to the left of the long snake in the faded are, and one in the top left. The tall element towards the center is after weathering very hard to make out in much detail.The left hand side of the panel. There’s one more fishbone element here, as well as delicate hash marks in the left center of the picture and at the very bottom, below the long squiggle line. A single pseudo-anthropomorph decorates a separate rock face in the upper left part of the panel. It appears the tall weathered element has an echo – above the “centipede” in the lower center there is an element of three wavy lines similar to the lower portion of the tall element.The best preserved part of the panel. The headless snake element was filled in with black pigment, and the topmost of the rough circles to its left may have been as well.A close-up view of one of the “fishbone elements”, this is the one in the center of the right-hand panel. Up this close we see that the pigment didn’t really soak into the rock face, which helps explain the extreme weathering. This is painted in an area of run-off. The rock face may already be impregnated with minerals from the run-off, resisting the pigment. Or the binding agent itself may not allow the paint to soak in.DStretch shows a dot at the top of the “fishbone”. Another fishbone up close. This one is found in the lower center of the panel.There’s a bit of a border on the left hand side of this element. I think — though I’m not sure — that the line on the right is separate from this design.Just to the left of this element is this ladder-like motif.Since this part of the panel is so faded I’ll add a DStretch of that element.As we continue to scan this panel right to left, we move into the part that is very weathered. This is at the top center of the panel, and it is hard to make anything out with the naked eye.With DStretch we can tell that this is a rather intricate part of the panel. There’s a kind of a “crown” of little hash marks atop another snake element. In the lower right of the picture is a simple cross or plus sign element, which repeats on the small panel to the immediate left of this picture.At the bottom of this long element we can see another of the “snake” elements, though this one doesn’t seem to have a head.Details. It does look like the snake squiggle never had a head.This panel is just as faded. The cross element is in the top right center. Let’s DStretch it.There it is, with a line underneath. There are a lot of abstract elements woven together in this panel. It is a pity it has faded so much. This would have been a really striking panel when freshly painted.The left side of the panel, while quite faded to the naked eye for the most part, has a lot of intricate elements and hash marks that can still be seen easily with DStretch.The DStretch version of the overview.Detail from the lower part of the panel. The centipede-like element on the right is the best preserved part of the panel. Hashmarks, a squiggle line, and connected circles round out this part of the panel.A close-up of the element in the middle of the panel. This motif is really common on this panel, and also in the western foothills of the Sierra in general. Curious to see it here, all the way over on the east side of the Sierra.Detail with DStretch. There are a lot of carefully drawn little hashmarks here. Note also the repeating “snake” squiggles, another element that repeats frequently on this panel.The smaller panel at the top. Another one of the centipede like elements is present, as well as a zoomorph – and maybe a squiggle line?Yes to all of those. The panel with DStretch.In front of the panel, on the ground, is three ripe pinon pine cones. I leave them undisturbed. They’ve been brought some distance to this panel, as there are no trees nearby.
This site doesn’t have a feeling of great antiquity to it, like some other sites I’ve been to have. There is a quasi-modern feel to the pigment, or more precisely, to the binding agents used to create the paint. For some sites, the paint has a thick appearance, or is completely absorbed into the granite because of permeable binding agents. In this case, it almost feels as if the binding agents kept the pigment on the surface of the granite, like modern paint might. I don’t have anything to back up my feeling of the age of this site, except for my observations visiting other sites.
All the same, it is a visit worth making. This site held meaning at one time and may still hold meaning. Those three pine cones may bear witness to that.
