#pictographs

TMW Pictographs, Emery County, UT. Another famous Utah site with more examples of both Fremont (Slide 1) and Barrier Canyon Style (Slide 2) pictographs. The anthropomorphs in Slide 2 are considered some of the largest in all of Utah, measuring over 6 feet tall without considering the parts that have fallen away due to erosion. Easy visible from a busy road, this site has seen its fair share of vandalism, especially the unfortunate horned figure peppered with bullet holes. 

BD Pictographs, Emery County, UT. A great and somewhat frustrating site containing prime examples of Barrier Canyon Style rock paintings, dating back to the archaic period, meaning these images are between 1500-4000 years old. I’m always blown away by the ingenuity of the Ancient Ones, painting on a rock surface using only natural pigment and materials, exposed to the elements for thousands of years, and still these images remain. It’s just mind-boggling. This particular panel shows the unfortunate results of outlining the images with chalk, a once-common practice (HARD eye roll). The chalk outlines are said to be from the 40′s and attributed to a man named John Simonson, who incorrectly outlined multiple figures to create the dragon-like image from Slide 1, which this canyon is named after. For a while the dragon image was considered to be a possible depiction of a pterosaur (a winged dinosaur), leading young-Earth creationists to claim this was proof of human-dinosaur co-existence. Luckily science put an end to all that when, in 2015, an x-ray fluorescence gun and DStretch were used to enhance and isolate the pigments in the panel, showing the presence of at least 5 separate images (I’ve outlined the 3 main images in Slide 2). All this because some dude thought he saw a dragon on the wall and decided to outline it in chalk. Even though this panel no longer provides proof that The Flintstones was based on real-life, this is still one of the more impressive Barrier Canyon panels in all of Utah, in my humble opinion. 

FCC Pictographs, UT. This spot could have been one of the most spectacular rock art sites in all of Utah, but it’s become a prime example of what can happen when vandalism goes unchecked. I think the main downfall to this site is its placement at ground level and the relative ease with which one can approach the wall. It’s just too easy a target for stupid people. As far as the actual indigenous art goes, the pictographs and petroglyphs are impressive. The zoomorphs here are practically life-size (possibly Barrier Canyon style?), and the shield-type pictograph is still vividly colored with iron oxide & white. It’s hard to tell if the headless animals are meant to be that way or if they’re just incomplete. One looks to have a rider on top (Slide 3), but I don’t think these are meant to be horses. They look way too old for that. In Slide 4 you can see some pecked hatch marks and bits of color (Below the large shield) that look like ornate necklaces, possibly belonging to more anthropomorphs that have since faded. There are just so many layers here, and it’s hard to see what’s what. The vandalism is prolific and spanning decades, from 1881 to as recent as 2004 from what dates I can make out. Some of the names look more recent than that. It’s the kind of site you could spend hours staring at and more images would keep coming to the surface, but there’s an overlaying sadness here. No matter how hard you stare, the bullet holes and names and dates won’t go away, They’ve been shot and scratched into this canvas deeper than any marks the Old Ones ever left here. And those bullet holes and names and dates will be here long after all the beauty from this site eventually fades into nothingness.

CRFS Panel, UT. A mix of petroglyphs, pictographs, historical graffiti, and not-so-historical graffiti. You can basically trace the timeline from the pictographs to the petroglyphs to the graffiti and really get a feel for how long this site has seen human activity over thousands of years. This was a sun-blasted day, so it’s not easy to see all the details and layers in this panel, but there are quite a few faded anthropomorph pictographs around the concentric circle design. And of course, bullet holes.

MS Pictographs 1, Emery County, UT. Some interesting but faded pictographs that look to be mostly Barrier Canyon Style. Slide 1 shows the rainbow-type motif that can be found at numerous sites in the area, often with figures below the arching lines. What’s especially interesting about this particular panel is the arch-shape has smaller arches with figures beneath it. I’m guessing the right side of the image had the same repeating design, but is now almost completely faded. Slide 2 has some typical  Barrier Canyon hollow-eyed anthropomorphs (The “crown” above one of the figures is made of fingerprints). Slide 3 is greatly faded but shows a white pigment that has withstood the test of time better than the iron oxide color, though this white may have been a later addition. Notice the large horned head in the bottom right. These pictographs don’t have as much of an overhang above them as many other sites, so their exposure to the elements has really worn them down. I can only imagine how fantastic these must have looked when they were originally created thousands of years ago.