Our tour of Southern Utah began here at Nine Mile Canyon. The name came from a early survey but the canyon is actually much longer. The petroglyphs here cover an area of over 40 miles. It is known as the longest art gallery in the world. The oldest panels date back 5000 years to the Archaic period. Later panels are attributed to the Fremont culture from 400 to 1500. The Utes are responsible for the era late 1500s to 1800s when the natives would have had horses. And of course there is much more modern graffiti, everywhere.
What do you think this rock is called? It is another Balanced Rock.
The owl panel
Next area is Sego Canyon where there is the above petroglyph. This area was mostly pictographs, shown below.
This panel is in Arches National Park, along the trail to Delicate Arch.
Newspaper Rock
Near the entrance to Canyonlands National Park Needles section
The art here covers a 2000 year span. Some early European explorers left their mark as well. Look through these and note many of the hands and feet have 6 digits. Polydactyly, a condition in which individuals have a sixth digit on an extremity is quite rare. It is interesting to note that 6 digit petroglyphs are not uncommon. Archeologists excavated a nearby burial site, Pueblo Bonito and found that 3.1% of the 96 individuals had a extra toe on the right foot.
In a cave in the Needles section of Canyonlands, these hands are on the ceiling of the rock overhang. Within the cave is a spring.
These last two pictographs are on a panel near Goblin Valley State Park.
This display was in a small museum near Torrey. Many of these points are made from petrified, jasper, agate, chert and obsidian.
No comments:
Post a Comment