The Power of Petroglyphs

I’ll admit this. Before I went to Albuquerque in 2006, I did know about the images and designs carved on rocks centuries ago, I just did not know that they were called petroglyphs. Now, it’s one of my favorite words – PETROglyph, petroGLYPH, PETROGLYPH!

Our recent visit to Taliesin  West reminded me that I’d written this after a trip to the Petroglyph National Monument just outside of Albuquerque. Here’s how it goes: 

Renting the last car available on the Enterprise lot on that very busy balloon fiesta weekend, we headed west. We had both seen some of the distinctive New Mexico landscape from the bus on a different excursion, but arriving at the Boca Negra Canyon seemed to just put everything in perspective – the black boulders broken from lava cap rock, the mesa and the stunning volcanic landscape seemed to beckon — “wander and be inspired” it seemed to say.

With cameras in hand, we clambered up the mesa admiring scenic views and the ancient carvings in the shape of animals, insects, people and other geometric symbols. It felt like being in a huge open air art gallery framed by the deep blue New Mexico sky. What did that drawing mean? Who carved it and why? Perhaps, explorers, colonists or even shepherds herding their animals in the Rio Grande Valley may have paused at times to break the monotony of their day by chipping at the rocks’ thin top layer. These unknown carvers discovered a lighter shade beneath the rock that made their imprints permanent.

Some symbols were more mysterious than others but all were early forms of communication, carved we were told about 400 to 700 years ago, [and some even dating back 3,000 years] by the ancestors of New Mexico’s native people. A communicator cannot help but draw parallels between what these ancient symbols represented and the many marks and logos of corporate culture today. Much of what we communicate today is so instantaneous and ever changing that it’s reassuring to find something so permanent and protected as these beautiful petroglyphs that are actually set in stone!

I learned from this adventure that the American Indians consider the entire monument a sacred landscape and that in this rich environment inhabited by hawks, road runners, rattlesnakes (thankfully, we did not encounter one!) and other critters, the spirits from the past live and linger and visitors may feel another presence beyond what is seen and heard. I can’t say that I felt anyone breathing down my neck but I felt reassured and connected to the past through these simple but strangely powerful works of art.