The Moab Man on the Golf Course Panel in Moab waves hello to anyone who visits this site. I took this photo in the late afternoon while I was in town for the Solstice this year.
Climbing Hands
A pair of white hands reach for the sky within the Canyon Pintado National Historic District in Western Colorado. These are located at the White Hands Site (good name, eh?) which is the first site you will come across when traveling from the south. There are some other pictographs scattered around this site as well.
Carrot Men Panel
Is it Barrier Canyon Style? Is it Fremont? Is is some transitional period in between? I’m not quite sure, but the Carrot Men Panel is very unique! The heads on some of these figures remind me of the pictographs found in Black Dragon Canyon and even Temple Mountain Wash. This is a great site to visit, except when the biting gnats are out in full force like they were today!
A Thousand Year Old Record, Gone in A Day!
Rock art is thought to represent the spiritual expression of people who lived here long ago. The fremont people who lived here from about AD 500 to AD 1100 left symbols on the rock which had tremendous meaning to them. The Shield site remains an example of what vandalism can do to a once beautiful and interesting archaeological site.
Parties, camping, tree cutting and outright deliberate destruction of the rock art have destroyed this site. No scientific knowlege will ever be gained here. No quiet enjoyment is possible. And, no one can feel anything but sorrow while viewing the remains of symbols left by people over a thousand years ago.
It belongs to you.