Three Fingers

Three Fingers is an interesting site, a canyon emerging right at the eastern edge of the San Rafael Ridge.

It does have, aside from the numerous petroglyphs on the northern face, this little cave.  As intriguing as it was, time was short and kept us from exploring it more closely.

But it was clear from the smoothness of the stone that this was an area that had been frequently accessed, and split off into not just one,  but two chambers.

The northern edge of the canyon is an extension of the cliff face, with petroglyphs extending down along the floor from the face. 

Looking out from the canyon the desert extends out, the Three Fingers canyon being one of the last cool bits of respite before venturing out off the plateau. 

The petroglyphs are diverse, yet not unique.

But this interlinked double circle is an interesting variant, and seems to have been repecked a number of times.  It also overrides several older images.

There are a number of anthropomorphs, this one of several found during our cursory examination of which could warrant being labeled as three fingered. 

Here is another three fingered figure, this one with four fingers on the other hand.  The pattern continues with the feet, three toes on one side and four on the other.

There is even at least one figure with more Fremont elements to it, here on the right.  It is of interest that is is on a far older matrix of stone, as evidenced by the spalling of this darker material to reveal a lighter underlayer, which are earlier, simpler figures.

Many of the figures found are quite abstract, at least viewed though the lens of time.

The admixure of bizarre and unusual creatures gives the site an otherworldly feel in places.  There are at least two "Caspar the friendly ghost" with tapered lower extremities here, while the older feature with two upward pointing tails filled with pecks induces a big questions mark right in the middle of my forehead.

The stone itself is also shot through with so many small natural fault lines it can be a little hard to tell what's going on.  The clearest information included in this shot is that "JH" also visited this site at some point in the past before sans serif became the accepted font of contemporary commentators.



Courthouse Wash Panel

It was only after a decade and a half of visiting Moab that I finally 'discovered' the Courthouse Wash panel.  Located immediately across from the location we were staying and on a major highway, I'd heard from my family that there were petroglyphs there.  I took off across the highway to visit the location, not quite knowing where they were or what they were.

This first picture is actually from my last day in Moab, when there was a group of tourists led on a trip to the main panel.  Here they are standing before the main panel, givin a sense of the scale and magnificence of this location.

The view looking across from the panel is delightful, with the Colorado River at one's feet winding into a narrow canyon to the west.  There is also a tremedous open field there, undoubtedly a rich source of riverbottom soil for farming for many centuries prior to it's current use.

Unfortunately the panel itself was vandalized with a steel brush in 1980 by persons unknown, which has caused a serious deterioration in the portions of the panel which could be easily reached.  As part of the Arches National Monument the affected areas of the Barrier Canyon Style Archaic figures have since been restored, but in the next photo the effect on the underlying matrix of the lower portion of the panel can still be seen.

The portion to the right, above a large pedestal, is in much better shape and retains much more of the original grandeur that helped place this site on the National Register of Historic Places.

The next view is from beneath the main portion of the panel, petroglyphs typical of the Moab region.  There are also several petroglyphs above the Barrier Canyon Style figures as well.

Below is a detail of some anthropomorphs, quadrupeds and more abstract elements from this petroglyph panel.

On the base of the higher pedestal to the right of the panel there are also some virtually horizontal petroglyphs of quadrupeds, difficult to view and easily missed.  The highlighting in this photograph may also be revealing some additional light petroglyphs beneath the pictographs.

Futher to the east of the main pictograph panel there are additional petroglyps.  Many of these are much more difficult to access (there is a fairly well marked trail up to the main panel from the road, as well as a marker) but interesting in there own right.  Below are some of the unusual circle motifs which are located there.

There is, of course, always speculation about the meaning of petroglyphs, but I do have to admit that this one reminds me of the Crab Nebula supernova of 1054; the crescent moon certainly seems similar to the pictograph at Penasco Blanco in Chaco Canyon.  That panel is also associated by some with the Halley's comet appearance several years later, and this circle with a dot inside it and three trailing rays are reminescent of European depictions of that comet.

This circle motif is more prominent at this location; this next photograph is of the same location but of a larger segment; in it one can count seven separate circular enclosures, if one counters the rayed circle.

 A number of older petroglyphs, seemingly of a Barrier Canyon Style, were also present, as well as even more circle motifs, including this gridded circle with a more recent (?) spiral superimposed over it. 

This panel alone would have been worth the visit to the site, but it was late and getting dark, the wind was vicious, the footing was precarious, and somehow I made that mistake of thinking I'd be back later to explore the rest of this site. 

Well, not yet, but I do look forward to getting back to this, one of the most imminently accessible and impressive sites in the Moab region.

BLM repair on the Sego panels

After speculating about the restoration being done on some of the panels, I found this undated BLM photograph of restoration work being done on the largest Sego pictographs...Somehow I doubt the original work was done with such ease of access.

It's not really unusual, when one thinks on it, that touchup is done on these national treasures.  It does make one wonder about the nature of such work, and to look at just how much is done, what it's based on, and the general fragility of such sites. 

In another upcoming post I'll be presenting one of the more impressive panels in the Moab area, the Courthouse Panel, which did have a great deal of work also done on it, necessitated by a extensive amount of vandalism perpetrated on it.

More from Sego Canyon

More pictures from Sego Canyon...but first this reminder from the vault toilet at the foot of the west wall panels...

Thanks for your consideration, and now on to the latest offerings from these panels.  Well, latest unless you consider the more recent signatures from the absent minded engravers who usually forget to leave  behind the art they've already signed for...

This is the easternmost, most recent panel.  Its historic nature is clear from, among other things, the presence of a horse.  F.B.'s even more recent addition is dated to much later in the twentieth century; earlier additions were unrestrained in their use of full names, since the penalties for defacing of archaeologically significant sites carry a hefty penalty. 

Here is a older Freemont style panel, accompanied by Gay Whipple's acknowledgement of his own existence dating from 1884.  Considering the long term proximity to traffic from the late 19th century on, it's surprising that there isn't more "grafitti" on the panels.  Fortunately most latter attempts at leaving an imprint on history leave a far shallower mark.

Aside from the triangular Freemont figures of varying age here and repesentations of bighorn sheep (one being hunted by bow?), there are some interesting abstract elements, including one which seems to represent a cradle board on the left. 

Advancing east and around the corner, one comes across a truly impressive panel of "red ghosts", some close to 10 feet or more in height, though their distance from the ground makes it hard to estimate their relative size. 

Although the ones in the middle could be reached from the darker colored platform rock beneath them, the ones on the left and right do not seem to have any ready access to the ground, at least at it's current level.

Here is a close up from the left hand side of the pannel.  I've been playing with the pictures some to try to make them stand out a little better, though with varying degrees of success.  For anyone so interested, I'd be glad to send along the larger file sized originals. 

This is not strictly a pictography panel which has stood up remarkably well over millenia of exposure to direct sunlight (is the pigment 'baked' into the limestone?), but with some petroglyphs as well.  Note the sheep in the lower right side. 

This is more mid panel.  There does seem to be a shift in the quality of the pigments as one moves to the right.  There is more of a single color to the pigment, with less of the depth that the more richly vari-colored anthropomorphs on the left side seem to generate. There petroglyphs at the bottom here are more interesting as well, more abstract.

Another view here of the more central portion of the panel.  The more extensive flaking off of the underlying stone makes portions quite a bit harder to clearly see, though compared to other pictographs in the area there is surprisingly little use of the figures for target practice.  (There is ongoing repair work being done on the panels, such one sometimes encounters at other federally protected sites, though perhaps the shootists were not quite accurate enough to make the kill here as much as at the closer rock art elsewhere in the canyon.) 

Above is the right hand side of the panel. 

Another view above of the right side.

Now another view of the entire panel, largely to try to show the entire panel has been utilized. 

Now a further back photo, this time giving a little better perspective with the tourists gawking down at the bottom of the panel.  Here the base for an old railroad bridge can also been seen.  Coal was discovered further upcanyon and for a while there was a town based on the mining there.  It is now a ghost town, and although we didn't make it there, it's well worth the visit.

Across the canyon are several nice smaller panels, in worse shape or less well restored, but every bit as interesting.  Above is a wider view of one of the panels, and below...

...a cropped, enhanced photo to bring out some more of the detail. This is the same panel I posted a picture of in the previous panel, with the odd and atypical 'rising up' above the central red-banded figure.

I'll repost it here, simply because it is one of the most intriguing and exotic looking bits of rock art I've seen in the wild.  The more I look at it the more it has a vaguely African or Caribbean feel, more flowing and almost imitating life in a seemingly sidelong glance.

This is part of the real draw to southwestern rock art, those moments that seem to elicit mysterious, unanswerable questions.  Unlike the huge H scrawled as part of a modern tag across it.

Inside the corral, this is a broader view of the alcove with some figures depicted in an earlier post.

Here is a closer detail of the upper left hand corner of the previous picture.  Of note is a recent addition in a red pigment very close to the older pictures, which is quite unusal for grafitti.  (Although there is one bit of modern red pigmented rock art at Chaco Canyon whose primary dating element is an SUV...)   Nice of them to put in a target for those more inclined to appreciate rock art with their sidearms.

Around the corner, also on the east side of the canyon, is an interesting bit of banded abstraction, unique in this setting and relatively unmolested.

There are also some very nice petroglyph panels on the east side of the canyon wall as well.  The superimposition of different techniques, themes and iconography, as well as the sheer (ranging from old Fremont anthropomorph, bizarre upper central psuedo-anthropomorph, very old pecked bighorn, and much more recent century old horse) creates a depth of variety that keeps drawing me back to this one.

Modern additions to these panels, though they tend to bring out the scold in this avocational archaeologist, can also elicit a great deal of humor.  They are what they are, and at times the juxtaposition between old and new makes me want to burst out in laughter. This is one such case, with the older "red devil" looking out over the "cowboy venus."

Sometimes it's just the contrast between simplicity and complexity.  I tended at first to pass by this clearly dated attempt at capturing the spirit of those who passed this way before.  On closer investigation, I found a much clearer and simpler reminder of the previous artist in the unadorned yet perfect circle above it. 

And so this segment on the rock art at Sego Canyon comes full circle.  More to come of our adventures exploring rock art in Utah, so stay tuned!

Sego Canyon

One of my real passions, the one that first got me involved Dirt Brother Bob in the first place, is rock art. Over the past decade and a half I've had the privilege of visiting remotes sites in southeastern Utah, and moving a little further north this year brought me closer to a different style than I've been accustomed to.

One of this is Sego Canyon, one of the more accessible and outstanding collections of varied rock art styles.  Although  most famous for it's Barrier Canyon style "ghosts", there is also a nice collection of Fremont and historic petroglyphs all in the immediate vicinity.

This is the rather large main panel.  Here, for the sake of clarity and and to assuage a degree of personal vanity, let me insert a person against which to judge it's size.

Here I stand closer to the base, though still not immediately at foot of the panel. 

And yet another photograph, taken by our trail boss and my brother, who was kind enough to recognize our relative proximity to this masterpiece and led us to it.  I was hoping that this closer view would reveal some of the subtleties that begin to emerge on closer examination, but this was not to be.   But this is true of almost any large grouping like this one.  You just have to be there, and since you're clearly not there right now, I guess this will just have to do until you get out there to pick out the details for your self. 

I don't have all the pictures taken out there on the western side of the canyon reduced for presentation yet, but here are some more from the eastern side of the canyon.  The canyon itself has seen many uses over the years, including mining for water from further upstream, but this set is from an area inside an old corral.

Although posing with these tall, silent type of red men was enjoyable, I was grateful that I didn't suffer their fate of serving as targets for shooting practice.  Again here you can jsut barely begin to appreciate the increased level of detail that begins to emerge, although the lower portion has suffered considerable degradation from contact either with cattle or the more detrimental lanolin containing wool of sheep, which has the unfortunate ability to really wipe oil based pigments clean. 

This last pictograph is actually around the corner from these, still on the east side of the canyon. The upper image is quite unusual and surely from a different period than the older Barrier Canyon style.  Any hints on the nature of the iconography it displays?

More to come from this Sego Canyon series as I shrink the originals to a webbish size, and this is just one of the sites that I'll be featuring here.