This site is a pretty small one, consisting of a single panel on a modest boulder with two very shallow bedrock mortars close by. The pictographs are still very vivid even though the site is quite exposed to the elements. I’m wondering whether this site is fairly modern – or maybe the binding agent in the pigment is particularly robust. The pigment and pictographs themselves definitely appear authentic – no modern paint used here!
We happened upon a small pictograph site on a rather desolate hill in Kawaiisu territory one hot summer day. I had foolishly thought that, since the desert was out of bounds with inhumane temperatures, we could at least enjoy the foothills in early morning. Turned out I was really wrong! Boy! It was barely 10 in the morning and we were already sweating buckets in sweltering temperatures and looking forward to recuperating at a nice microbrewery on the way back home. Beware the summer, everyone!
Okay, so this little site was a complete surprise, and is a bit of a mystery to me!
Backing up a bit: the summer heat had baked us clean out of the high desert, so we fled for the Sierra foothills, only to find that we brought the heat along with us. I was plodding up a slope, head down, thinking thoughts about being another few thousand feet higher up where maybe, finally, the summer heat would let up, and wondering why it felt like I just couldn’t reach that nice-looking rock I wanted to check out … when I lifted my head, saw the rock right in front of me, and … stared blankly at what seemed like a blank rock face.
Sometimes, pictograph sites are vibrant and impressive. Other times, the remaining pigment needs careful attention and some deliberate work with DStretch before you can see what used to be. Today’s site falls in that category.
This is a small pictograph site that we found while exploring a much larger complex in Kawaiisu territory. It consists of only two pictographs in a narrow rock shelter, but it seems to tie in well with the rest of the site. The pictographs at this location all seem to share a common theme.
Let’s have a look!
These pictographs are found on the ceiling of a low rock shelter. This site is in a drainage in the Eastern Sierra, in Kawaiisu territory. The shelter is much too low to be comfortable for sitting in, but the ceiling is blacked, I assume by soot!
The elements are fairly sparse, in red and black. Let’s take a look.
This is a rather nice little panel of pictographs, facing east from its perch on the western side of a low saddle.
The panel is not complete – in several places small flakes of the rock face have exfoliated away, taking the pigment with it. This effect is not very noticeable at first because the style of the panel is unusual, with lots of small, choppy elements interspersed with some well-made Representational elements. At first glance it just seems like the missing parts were intentional. But when you examine the rock face a little more you can tell by the color differences that the panel is exfoliating.
In the previous two segments on this pictograph site, found within a larger habitation complex in the Eastern Sierra foothills in Kawaiisu territory, I talked about how I came across the site, and what elements can be found on the left-hand part of the panel.
Now it is time to look at the last part of the panel, and then look at the panel as a whole.
I’ll note now that this site does have some interaction with the sun at significant times of the year such as the winter solstice, as documented by other visitors. I haven’t had a look at the site at suitable times yet, so I can’t yet comment on it in that regard! I’ve had some unfortunate adventures with two other “solstice” sites to date ( you can read all about the Diamond Solstice site or the Shooting Star site, if you like! ) and those were at dawn on a summer day when the only bad thing was waking up at 4am … there are no Starbucks locations close to any of these sites and I’m not much of a morning person! Then again, I’m not much of a person for resisting interesting things either, so … check back for more occasionally! I may well have shown up on a mid-winter’s day to see what happens then.
In Part One of this series on the “Black Hole Sun” pictograph panel I talk about how I discovered this pictograph panel in Kawaiisu territory in the eastern Sierra foothills and also showed an overview of the panel itself. Now, I would like to take a look at the left hand side of that panel and the elements that can be seen there.
This is a pretty involved pictograph panel within a larger habitation site. Researchers have tied this panel to solstice events, and the imagery certainly seem to support an astronomical observation angle.
That is very interesting by itself, but I also found this panel in a kind of roundabout way, and I thought this was interesting enough in itself that I would kick off a short series of posts about this site by writing about the discovery.