ANCIENT CHINESE INSCRIPTIONS IN ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO – REALLY?

 

Petroglyphs at Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, New Mexico. From Ruskamp, 2017.

Abstract symbols from two locations in the American Southwest have been supposedly translated and read as 2500 year old Chinese inscriptions. This, from a publication by the Early Sites Research Society, a group of fringies which advocates a large number of eccentric beliefs regarding human presence in the New World. I first became aware of the group back in the days of the Ogam controversy and Barry Fell in the early 1980s. Not only Ogam, but many other languages such as Phoenician and other North African and Mediterranean dialects are supposedly found in New World inscriptions according to these people. No wonder they can read ancient Chinese inscriptions in Arizona and New Mexico.

Now, readers of RockArtBlog may remember that I have, in fact, in the past expressed my openness to more prehistoric contact between the Old and New Worlds than just the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows. If we were talking about some sort of prehistoric Chinese evidence found along the Pacific Coast of America, I might suspend some of my skepticism, but here we are talking about prehistoric Chinese presence hundreds of miles from the coast through the Mojave desert. I just cannot go this far. I will, however, summarize the gist of the arguments and let you decide for yourself.

Highlighted petroglyphs at Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, New Mexico. From Ruskamp, 2017.

“In the roadless Rinconada Canyon area of Albuquerque, NM’s, Petroglyph National Monument, high above a sandy trail frequented daily by hikers, joggers, and dog-walkers, is a set of very old petroglyphs, readable as ancient Chinese script. Here, in public view yet remaining unrecognized and miscategorized, are the ancient written Chinese symbols; xiàn ‘to offer sacrifice in worship to deceased ancestors’, quặn ‘dog’, dà ‘great’, jiẻ ‘to kneel down in reverence’, Dà Jiặ (the name of the third(or fourth) king of the Shang dynasty), and gệng (the seventh Chinese Heavenly Stem).” (Ruskamp 2017:1) Now all of the other rock art at Petroglyph National Monument is known to have been produced by the ancestral First Nations people of that region.

Arizona petroglyphs claimed to be an ancient Chinese Inscription. From Ruskamp, 2017.

“In the Upper Little Colorado River drainage of east-central Arizona, approximately 250 miles to the southwest of Albuquerque NM, there exist three ancient and uniquely subdivided petroglyph cartouches, each filled with readable combinations of what clearly appear to be ancient Chinese logograms. Instructively, these cartouches were numbered by their ancient author, for written beside them is the Chinese character yī, meaning ‘one’, and similarly inscribed beside the adjoining cartouche is the symbol yĭ, meaning ‘second’. Together, the equivalent positioning of these numeric designations, one beneath what is meant to be the bottom of each cartouche, provides a visual clue for the intended alignment as well as the reading order of these writings.” (Ruskamp 2017:5 &6) In this example we are talking about an area in which the Hopi claim a deep prehistoric connection. (Riggs 2022)

Hopi Nakwach symbol. From Ruskamp, 2017.

Ancient Chinese jiū symbol, From Ruskamp, 2017.

Obviously, Ruskamp is relying on what he sees as similarity of symbols in his interpretation of the petroglyphs. “More than once, the ancient author of the cartouches described above recorded his message with graphic images that were, and still are, understood in the same manner by both Native American and Asiatic populations. The first of these mutually symbolic figures portrays the interlocking fingers of two hands. Persisting into modern times, the Hopi people of Northern Arizona refer to this figure as Nakwach, their symbol for ‘brotherhood, friendship.’ Chinese calligraphers, both ancient and modern, use an identical figure, jiū, which for them represents the twisting of multiple items into one.” (Ruskamp 2017:11) I have written previously that one can easily go too far in relying on similarity of symbols to make connection. After all, there are only so many shapes available to the human mind. The fact that the Hopi nakwach symbol somewhat resembles the Ancient Chinese jiū is meaningless. There are tens of thousands of similar symbols in the rock art of cultures around the world.

Linked Native American rectilinear spirals. From Ruskamp, 2017.

Ancient Chinese huí symbol. From Ruskamp, 2017.

The same goes for Ruskamp’s second example, the rectilinear spiral. “A second prominent example of the parallel symbolism employed by North American and Asiatic authors, evident in the study cartouches, is their joint use of a rectilinear spiral to convey the concept of a ‘round trip journey.’ This symbol, which the Chinese pronounce huỉ, appears frequently in North American rock art, both as a single object and in repetitive patterns. Historically, the Hopi have used this symbol to portray the four complete migrations that their legendary god Massau instructed them to make, once to each of the four cardinal directions and finally to the ‘Center Place.’” (Ruskamp 2017:12) This symbol is found in rock art around the world and from all chronological periods. Ruskamp makes a point to discuss the resemblance of these symbols to Hopi symbols, of course they resemble Hopi symbols, they are Hopi symbols.

“Accordingly, what does seem certain is that the origin of the significantly repatinated and uniquely styled Asiatic script symbols identified in this report must be assigned to China, for ‘The Chinese script is obviously and original system of signs created to record an ancestral form of the Chinese language’ (Houston 2008:258). Never in the history of humanity has such a uniquely complex and readable set of characters been invented more than once.” (Ruskamp 2018:18)

“The comparative evidence presented in this report, which is supported by both analytical evaluation and expert opinion, documenting the presence of readable sequences of Archaic Chinese scripts located upon the rocks of North America, indicates the creation of these images prior to the extinction of memory of oracle-bone script. Therefore, in contrast to any previous historical uncertainty, we may conclude that trans-Pacific exchanges of epigraphic intellectual property took place between Chinese and North American populations approximately 2,500 years ago.” (Ruskamp 2018:18)

In evaluating Ruskamp’s thesis I am not just a skeptic, I am a non-believer, yet I hope that my evaluation has been fair. I do not even go so far as to say that there could not have been prehistoric trans-Pacific contact. There are a few interesting arguments for that to have actually happened. It is just that I do not see Archaic Chinese inscriptions in these examples. My reasoning relies on two main arguments. First, I would expect ancient Chinese inscriptions, if they exist in North America, to be fairly near the Pacific coast, not hundreds of miles across the Mojave Desert. And my second objection is the same one used for decades now in arguing against the epigraphic diffusionism of Barry Fell – the resemblance seen in the symbols is just a coincidence as they have been used by hundreds of cultures over thousands of years. They are the result of independent invention, not cultural diffusion, and certainly not the result of an Ancient Chinese expedition.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

Also, I have no idea why Blogger decided to make the text background for most of this column white, but, as I have said before, I am an Art Historian, not a techie.

PRIMARY REFERENCE:

Riggs, Sarah, 2022, Hopi Connections to the Little Colorado River, 5 January 2022, Grand Canyon Trust, https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/blog/hopi-connections-little-colorado-river, accessed 9 November 2022.

Ruskamp, John A., Jr., with a comment by Stephen C. Jett, 2015-2017, Two Ancient Rock Inscriptions Indicate and Archaic Chinese Presence in the American Southwest, from Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts, Volume 6, Numbers 2-4, Early Sites Research Society, Independence, Missouri.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Houston, Steven, ed., 2008, The First Writing: Script Inventions History and Process. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Wieger, Lèon, 1965, Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification and Signification. A Thorough Study from Chinese Documents, 2nd ed. St. Paul, MN: Para[1]gon Book Reprint Corp.; Mineola, NY: Dover Publications (orig. pub. Hsien[1]Hsien, China: Catholic Mission Press, 1927).

A NEANDERTAL MYSTERY – THE MASK OF LA ROCHE-COTARD:

Neandertal mask of La Roche-Cotard. Internet photograph public domain.

The subject of Neandertal creativity and art is becoming a common topic, indeed, I have written on this in RockArtBlog a number of times (See the cloud index at the bottom) One marvelous artifact which may illustrate this is the somewhat mysterious Mask of La Roche-Cotard.

“The cave of La Roche-Cotard (Indre-et-Loire) was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century and excavated in its first decade and again from the 1970s. During the Latter campaign the ‘Neanderthal face’ was recovered from a clear Mousterian horizon (Layer 7). The piece was first published in the journal Paleo (Volume 12, 2000), and has now been published in English in the journal Antiquity (Marquet and Lorblanchet 2003). The alluvial sands of Layer 7 represent a beach of the Loire river on which Neanderthals had stopped, lit a fire, and probably prepared herbivore meat, leaving behind numerous unretouched flint flakes, several tools and a small faunal assemblage, all lying horizontally in the layer suggesting an in situ horizon said (on what grounds we are not told) to date to ‘c 32,100 BP.’”

La Roche-Cotard. Internet photograph public domain.

(Pettit 2993:1) That date estimate has since been proven to be quite far from the mark as will be seen below.

“At La Roche-Cotard, France, a worked piece of flint carrying a figurative image, enhanced by a splinter of bone has been interpreted as a pierre’s artefact; an artefact that was collected and then intentionally modified by humans, or protofigurine (Marquet and Lorblanchet 2003). The lithic features a natural tubular perforation which creates a ‘bridge’ dividing the artefact into two parts. The object has been worked to give it a more regular shape and the bone splinter inserted into the tubular feature was purposely blocked into place by the means of two small flint plaquettes. In completion, the artifact rather resembles a human face (Marquet and Lorblanchet 2003). The cognitive capacity and artistic impulse required to recognize a potential human face in the original lithic, the leap of imagination it takes to see life in stone, and the depth of planning required to modify and finish the artifact clearly shows a cognitive modernity in the La Roche-Cotard Neanderthals.” (Amos 2011:56)

Excavation at La Roche-Cotard. Internet photograph public domain.

Creativity involves at least a two stage process. The mind of the perceiver must first have the creativity to come up with an original idea or, in this case, recognize the potential for modification of the stone to create the simulacrum of a human face. Stage two then requires the planning and execution of any modification thought desirable to achieve the planned end.

“A two-stage process might be involved. First is the recognition of the similarity of an object to the human form. Secondly follows the simple modification to embellish this. Does the latter imply that a critical cognitive threshold has been crossed? Given the fact that removals have occurred on the piece, we cannot really understand whether the piece did or did not resemble a human face before modification, ie, whether it suggested an association to the modifier or ‘artist’. If it didn’t then the modification to create a resemblance from scratch is even more remarkable. These issues will have to be addressed. Whatever ongoing analysis will reveal, the piece will no doubt contribute towards the ‘modern’ behavior argument. In particular, it should stimulate a mature debate as to how art and other modern behavior evolved.” (Pettit 2003:2-3)

 

The dated layersat La Roche-Cotard (A and B). Internet photograph public domain.

As to the age of this artifact, previous ¹⁴C dates were indefinite, having come in essentially at the limit of reliable age ranges for that technique. Recent redating by optically stimulated luminescence of the sediment layer that the mask was recovered from gave the startling age of 75.6 ± 5.8 ka. (Marquette et al. 2016)

“Thus the existence of a symbolic expression 50,000 years ago, and even beyond that, largely preceding the Upper Paleolithic, and a probabli origin of European rock art in the Middle Paleolithic, are becoming clearer. It is becoming increasingly evident that in other parts of the world, symbolic activities predate the Middle Paleolithic (Lorblanchet and Bahn 2017)

With the obtaining of a set of OSL dates, the understanding of the nature and rhythms of the occupation of La Roche-Cotard was enriched chronologically. New dates are in progress that will probably help to clarify a little more the chronology of this complex site but, in any case, it should be now considered that the ‘mask’ of La Roche-Cotard comes from a Mousterian layer that has been dated by the OSL method of an age of the order of 75 ka.” (Marquette et al. 2016)

Neandertal mask of La Roche-Cotard. Internet photograph public domain.

We continue to find that our ancestory possessed human creativity farther and farther back in time. Future discoveries should prove even more exciting.

NOTE 1: I am somewhat mystified how the passage from Marquette et al., which is dated 2016, contains a reference to a publication that is dated 2017 (Lorblanchet, M. and Paul Bahn 2017). I surmise that we must assume it was written in 2016 but its publication was delayed and that reference was added without re-dating it at the actual release.

NOTE 2: Images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

PRIMARY REFERENCES:

Amos, Linda Marie, 2011, ‘Them’ or ‘Us’? A Question of Cognition, The Case for Neanderthal Modernity, Autumn 2011, Master’ Thesis, Universitas Bergensis, pp. 1-88, accessed on 21 October 2022.

Marquet, Jean-Claude and Michel Lorblanchet, 2015, A Neanderthal face? The proto-figurine from La Roche Cotard, Langeais (Indreet-Loire, France), Antiquity, December 2015, DOI:10.1017/5003598X00061627, accessed on 18 October 2022.

Marquet, Jean-Claude, et al., 2016, New dating of the ‘mask’ of La Roche-Cotard (Langeais, Indre-et-Loire, France), Paleo Revue D’Archologie Prehistorique, pp. 253-263, https://doi.org/10/4000/paleo.3278, accessed 2 November 2022.

Pettit, Paul B., 2003, Is this the infancy of art? Or the art on an infant? A possible Neanderthal face from La Roche-Cotard, France, from Before Farming, Volume 4, Number 11, pp. 1-3, accessed on 27 October 2022.

Wikipedia, Mask of la Roche-Cotard, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mask_of_la_Roche-Cotard, accessed on 23 October 2022.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Lorblanchet, M. and Paul Bahn, 2017, The First Artists; in search of the world’s oldest art, Thames and Hudson,

Marquet, J. C. and Lorblanchet, M., 2003, A Neanderthal face? The proto-figurine from La Roche Cotard, Langeais (Indre-et-Loire, France, Antiquity 77.

 

CACAO IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST AND ROCK ART:

One minor, but enjoyable, facet of the study of rock art in the American Southwest is the search for Mesoamerican influences in the imagery. Many examples of large-eyed anthropomorphs, for instance, have been labeled (whether righly or wrongly) as Tlaloc, the Aztec rain god. I have previously written about so-called abstract examples of rock art that resemble glyphs in Mayan or Aztec writing. On 30 October 2021 I published “Symbols for Geologic Phenomena in Rock Art – Earthquakes Revisited” (Faris 2021) in which I showed a symbol in New Mexico that resembled the Aztec glyph representing earthquakes. On 15 August 2015, I published “Wind Symbols in Rock Art of Chaco Canyon” showing a petroglyph in Chaco Canyon that appears identical to Mesoamerican breath/speech/wind scrolls. (Faris 2015) I make no claims to being a Mayanist, linguist, or epigrapher, so these comparisons may be on shaky ground, but it is an interesting question. Now, I am presenting another Mayan symbol that has possible relatives in the American Southwest – the glyph for cacao.

Rio Azul cocoa pot, Mayan, Guatemala. Illustration from atlasobscura.com.

Cacao, the flavoring ingredient of our modern chocolate was of huge  importance to the Maya. “During the Classical Period of the Maya, from approximately 250 – 900 A.D., chocolate was a cornerstone of daily life. It was currency, a ritual ingredient, and a pleasurable drink. But until recently, the details of Maya life were fairly opaque, largely due to the destruction wrought by the conquering Spanish. In the 1980s, after intense effort by Mayanist scholars, there was breakthrough after breakthrough in deciphering Maya glyphs, the written symbols that survived in codices, stone carvings, and pottery. One milestone was the examination of a remarkable ancient vessel, which was found by an unlikely party, to contain chocolate.” (Ewbank 2019)

Of these glyphs on the vessel, drawn by Stuart, the two on the right of the top two lines read cacao. Drawing by David Stuart.

This vessel was found in an untouched Mayan tomb. “In 1984, archaeologists discovered a pristine Maya tomb in the Rio Azul region of Guatemala. Among the royal offerings, they found an exquisite pot. Topped with a twist-top and a handle painted like jaguar skin, it contained an intriguing residue.” (Ewbank 2019:1)

“The archaeologists and anthropologists working on the Rio Azul project mused over whom to send the residue to for analysis. ‘Okay, well, who knows the chemistry of chocolate really well?’ Stuart says with a chuckle. So, they called the number on the back of a Hershey’s bar and got in touch with W. Jeffrey Hurst, an analytical chemist at the Hershey Food Corporation Technical Center. The chocolate company had labs full of PhDs, where Hurst and chemist colleague Stanley M. Tarka tested the residue. Sure enough, says Stuart, ‘they ran the chemical signatures, and they were spot on.’ Hershey chemists found caffeine and theobromine in the residue. ‘The only plant or organic material in all of ancient America that can produce those two chemical signatures together are cacao.” (Ewbank 2019:2)

This pot also had a number of Mayan glyphs on the outside, and the excavators called in Mayanist David Stuart to decipher them. “’I was actually the person they brought on to read all of the hieroglyphs that they found in their excavations, which was a pretty cool job to have,’ Stuart says. While Stuart only saw photographs of the pot, he was nevertheless struck by it. ‘Wow, that is one bizarre vessel,’ he remembers thinking. Not only did it have an unusual shape, but the glyphs adorning it were remarkably well preserved. ‘and then it was like, Wait a minute, two of them spell out the word kakaw.’” (Ewbank 2019:2) Kakaw is the Mayan equivalent for our modern word cocoa, one of the few Mayan words that are also common in our modern English.

Chaco canyon cylindrical jars, American Museum of Natural History. Photograph by Marianne Tyndall.

At Chaco Canyon in western New Mexico the archaeologists who excavated Pueblo Bonito found a large number of cylindrical pieces of pottery. “Scientists have long puzzled over the purpose of tall, cylindrical jars found in the northwestern New Mexico site known as Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon. Speculations range from vessels for corn beer or, with skin stretched over the tops, for drums.” (Ehrenberg 2009)

Patricia Crown of the University of New Mexico “had learned of similarly sized jars from some Maya sites that researchers knew were specialty vessels for cacao drinks. (When the symbols on the Maya jars were finally deciphered, they read the equivalent of ‘This is Bill’s cacao vessel’) Crown sent shards from several jars and a pitcher to paper coauthor Jeffrey Hurst, a specialist in analysis of cacao remains with the Hershey Center for Health and Nutrition in Hershey, Pa.” (Ehrenberg 2009) This is the same scientist who had done the analysis for the Mayan pot from the Rio Azul site.

“Using mass spectrometry and high performance liquid chromatography, Hurst analyzed the traces of residue on the jar shards. Cacao has more than 500 compounds, but theobromine gives it away. The chemical could have only come from the cacao plant, a neotropical tree that doesn’t grow north of Mexico. Three of the five shards had traces of theobromine, the pitcher shards did not Crown says.” (Ehrenberg 2009) This analysis, then, seems to provide proof that Mexican cacao was present in the American Southwest.

Indeed, “this is not only evidence for cacao use north of the Mexican border, but, if these sherds are indeed from cylinder jars, it is evidence for how cylinder jars were used in rituals in Pueblo Bonito. At least on some occasions, the jars held a drink made from cacao seeds brought from a great distance.” (Crown and Hurst 2009: 2112)

“Pueblo groups and an ensuing Southwest society traded turquoise for Mesoamerican cacao for about five centuries, from around 900 to 1400, proposes a team led by archaeologist Dorothy Washburn of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Surprisingly, large numbers of people throughout Pueblo society apparently consumed cacao, from low-ranking farmers to elite residents of a multistory pueblo.” (Bower 2011)

“Whether Chacoan ritual practitioners appropriated and adapted the use of cacao and cylinder vessels to existing ritual in a way that was uniquely southwestern or adopted a Mesoamerican ritual remains and open question.” (Crown and Hurst 2009: 2112)

If cacao itself was present at Chaco Canyon it could only have been traded in from Mesoamerica, and with the physical presence of cacao, is it not conceivable that the Mayan symbol designating cacao could have come north with it? “Cacao: that is, chocolate. ‘It’s one of the few words we use that is actually Mayan,’ Stuart says. The Maya glyph for cacao, as it appears on the Rio Azul vessel, looks like a fish. But ‘it turns out the fish is a phonetic sign,’ Stuart says. He recognized that the glyph combining a fish (ka), a comb or fin (ka), and the sign for –w(a) was, of course, Kakaw. While Mayanist Floyd Lounsbury was the first to phonetically decipher a cacao glyph a decade prior, deciphering the cacao glyph on a Maya vase was a breakthrough.” (Ewbank 2019)

Fish variant of Mayan glyph for cocoa. Drawing by David Stuart. Internet illustration, public domain.

So the fish provides for the syllable KA, the fin provides another KA, and the small ear-like oval is the W, adding up to KAKAW or cacao.

Head variant of Mayan glyph for cocoa.  Drawing by David Stuart. Internet illustration, public domain.

In another rendering of the glyph the fish is replaced with a head and two fins provide the KA and the KA, with an ear-like oval still providing the W. So. if we are going to find an equivalent to the Mayan Kakaw glyph in the American Southwest we should look for a pair of fin or comb like shapes with the ear-like oval. And I have indeed found at least a couple of examples that just might fill this bill.

Mesa Prieta, Rio Arriba county, New Mexico. Photograph Peter Faris, 14 May 1997.

Mesa Prieta petroglyph, kakaw highlighted on photograph. Peter Faris.

Drawing of glyph, Peter Faris.

My first possibility is found on Mesa Prieta in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. Two fans or combs are contained in a circle with the oval ear-like oval appended to it, much like the second, or face variant, example of the Mayan glyph.

Taos county, San Luis Valley, northern New Mexico. Photograph Peter Faris, March 1995.

Petroglyphs highlighted on photograph. Illustration by Peter Faris.

Drawing of glyph. Peter Faris.

Another possibility, although somewhat weaker, also has two fans or combs with an ear-like oval, but without the enclosing circle. This one is in the San Luis Valley, in Taos County in Northern New Mexico.

Were these meant to be references to cacao in northern New Mexico? I really do not know, but it is certainly fun to do the speculation.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Bower, Bruce, 2011, Pueblo trade for chocolate big-time, 17 March 2011, https://www.sciencenews.org, accessed 17 September 2022

Crown, Patricia L., and W. Jeffrey Hurst, 2009, Evidence of cacao use in the Prehispanic American Southwest, pp. 2110-2113, PNAS, 17 February 2009, Vol. 106, No. 7, www.pnas.org.

Ehrenberg, Rachel, 2009, Chocolate may have arrived early to U. S. Southwest, 2 February 2009, https://www.sciencenews.org, accessed 15 October 2022.

Ewbank, Anne, 2019, Archaeologists, Mayanists, and Hershey’s Collaborated to Reveal This Ancient Vessel’s Secrets, 21 February 2019, https://atlasobscura.com/articles/mayan-chocolate?, accessed 15 October 2022.

Faris, Peter, 2021, Symbols for Geologic Phenomena in Rock Art – Earthquakes Revisited, 30 October 2021, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com/2021/10/symbols-for-geologic-phenomena-in-rock.html

Faris, Peter, 2015, Wind Symbols in Rock Art of Chaco Canyon, 15 August 2015, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/wind-symbols-in-rock-art-of-chaco-canyon.html 

CHRIS MARKES ROCK ART PHOTOGRAPHY - AN EXAMPLE OF REAL ART:

Birthing Rock, Moab, Utah. Photograph Chris Markes.

From time to time I receive communications from readers of RockArtBlog who share their work and studies with me. I have even published some of these on this blog. I have recently had the pleasure of receiving the pictures below from Chris Markes of Moab, Utah. Instead of recording rock art as an archaeological/anthropological or scientific endeavor, Chris is pointing at the artistic qualities of rock art panels, enhancing their mood with night time long-exposure shots. The sheer beauty of these pictures immediately grabbed me and I want to share this with all of you. As you view these pictures try to temporarily shut off the rock art studies or recording frame of mind and approach them as if they are still life or trompe l’oeil works of art. I like to imagine a bright moonlit night, one of those that is almost bright enough to read a newspaper by, with the beautiful universe behind and above the rock art panel.

Birthing Rock, Moab, Utah. Photograph Chris Markes.

In describing his approach to these beautiful time lapse photographs he said; “I go for around 2600-2800 kelvin for lighting in order to get that nice warm vs. cool look between the night sky and the art!  I moved to using a small RGB LED panel, so the light is constant.”  Chris added that his illumination level setting is “at 1% of 100% and on these, they’re actually bouncing light from the ground, then back up to the art.” I find the result to be quite striking and unforgettable.

Birthing Rock, Moab, Utah. Photograph Chris Markes.

In Chris’ words “Visiting the panels is a rather transformative experience in a present time where existential nihilism is the pill of the day – the panels to me serve as a reminder about imagining a time where meaning, purpose and survival were brought into the present moment. While many of us, due to modern conveniences, presently watch/observe life, the idea of truly living life – taking it in, and experiencing it, serves as a profound reminder that our time here is transient, limited, and important.” Well said Chris.

Arches National Park, Moab, Utah. Photograph Chris Markes.

Additionally, Chris sent me a time-lapse video compilation at Arches National Park. (Cut and paste into your browser https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwF8Q6WhkjQ). If you look closely, at 2.18 of the video you can see a satellite crossing the sky over Arches (music by Vangelis).

Arches National Park, Moab, Utah. Photograph Chris Markes.

While Chris is not the only person doing this sort of photography his work is a really excellent example of using photography to focus on the mood of a rock art panel instead of merely recording the reality of its presence. He is literally establishing its beauty and presence in the universe. As a student of rock art since 1979 from a background of Art History instead of Archaeology I appreciate the beauty of Chris’s presentations. Thank you Chris for sharing and I look forward to seeing more of your work.