A couple of years ago I was in the area and went to visit the “Tale Of Years” site again, since my pictures from my first visit to this site were not that great. The site was still in good condition back then, and now, more than two years later, I finally get around to posting the pictures.
For a complete overview of the site, see the original post I linked to above. Here I’m just going to touch on a handful of highlights that are better shown with this set of pictures.
The panel is painted in the lower half of a large but shallow overhang. This wide-angle photo makes it seem closer to the ground than it is. It is at comfortable height for someone crouching down.
Looking off to the right side of the shelter. The best preserved element at the site, a round element, is nestled in that slightly deeper scoop in the rock face, which provided a bit more shelter.
The circle element, which is at the end of a branch coming off of the main hash mark line that runs through the site.
Detail of the circle element. There’s a faint diamond-shaped element above it, too.
Over on the left are some smudged elements below the hash mark line.
Looks like we have a D-shaped element, a shield, and some anthropomorphs.
The left side of the panel.
Way over, past the left end, there’s a little pigment smudge.
It’s a small anthropomorph!
The panel. Part of the top is now speckled with exfoliated areas.
A peek with DStretch. As we’ve seen before there is a lot of anthropomorphs in this the panel.
Over on the far right of the panel, past the circular element, there is a smudge of pigment on a slight bulge in the rock face.
It doesn’t really look like anything recognizable with DStretch, but we can see some detail above the circle – there’s two very thin lines of pigment intersecting a thicker line, which is broken up by these lines. Also note the five red dots of pigment over at the upper right. These little pigment dots show up every so often in Tübatulabal pictograph panels.
Almost directly above the circular element, just to the right of the split in the long hash mark line that crosses the entire panel, is a second faded area. This was my favorite discovery at this site. I only realized what it was afterwards while processing my photos with DStretch.
Look! A very faded anthropomorph. It seems to be holding something in the hand on the left, and the other hand is digitate. There is also a semi-circular appendage emerging from its head. Now, let me remind you what the far left of this site looks like.
On the far left of this boulder, some distance away from the main panel, are two anthropomorphs.
The one on the left is the twin of the faded anthropomorph we just looked at. Isn’t that a cool find? Unless you look really closely you won’t even notice the faded anthropomorph. In this picture you can also see a faded element between the two figures. Two concentric circles, and perhaps some lines forming a triangle towards the top. It might depict a ceremonial object.
A fair bit has been written about this panel and what it means. One interpretation I’ve seen is that this site was tied into puberty rites, or menstruation specifically. Looking at these anthropomorphs, one can imagine that on the left we have the larger figure accompanying a smaller figure towards the panel ( these figures are on the side of the shelter that you enter from ) and then, at the end of the panel, the larger, guiding figure appears again.
If you visit this site, spend some time just gazing quietly at it, trying to imagine the meaning behind it and how the people who made it lived their lives.