Still working on the basement - have re-painted and touched up pretty much everything, and am now boxing up the shelf contents of the family room so that the carpet-layers can move the shelves around next week.
And since none of the painting I'm doing on my walls is very interesting to look at, let me share some of the amazing surface decoration we saw down in southern Utah -
We drove down to an area called Parowan Gap to see the centuries-old petroglyphs there.
According to Utah.com: Several centuries ago Native Americans traveling through the area stopped and pecked designs onto the smooth faces of large boulders found on the east side of the gap.
Over the years many of the boulders have been covered with these chiseled figures known as petroglyphs.
The petroglyphs here are thought to be the work of several cultural groups and represent a long period of use by Native cultures.
What these designs mean is still unknown.
Archaeologists debate that they represent concepts, ideas or actual happenings.
Perhaps they were part of a religious activity or hunting ritual.
The local Native Americans consider them to be an important part of their cultural history relating stories of their ancestor's lifeways.
New dating techniques are being developed that will allow petroglyphs to be placed in time.
While we don't know the precise age of these petroglyphs yet, we do know that the agriculturally based Sevier-Fremont lived in the area over a thousand years ago.
There is little doubt that some of the designs were made by this group, or perhaps even the earlier nomadic Archaic peoples.
Researchers believe that the semi-nomadic ancestors of the present day Southern Paiute also created some of these figures.
They were really impressive to see up close. And beautiful.
(The modern contributions - not so much...)
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2 comments:
I've never heard of these before, they are incredible! We have similar mysterious carvings over here, I think they're called cup and ring designs - it would be so interesting to discover what they all meant.
I guess these are our versions of 'cave paintings' (although nowhere near as ancient). Cool, and mysterious. Probably part of their long-lasting appeal. And probably done for different reasons than the ones in your part of the world.
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