A NEWLY DISCOVERED PETROGLYPH IN EL PASO COUNTY, COLORADO:

Boulder with Jerry Grandel's petroglyph and shadow pointer. Photograph Jerry Grandel.

We often tend to think that the only new discoveries of rock art will happen in isolated places, far from the madding crowds. A while back I received photos of a newly discovered petroglyph located within sight of a major metropolis. Colorado Springs is against the Eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, under Pike’s Peak. This area, back in the day, was likely Ute territory although Cheyenne and Comanche peoples visited it as well. It was even on the route of a portion of the Athabaskan migration that brought the people who were to become the Navajo and Apache tribes to the Southwest about 500 years ago. Indeed, this area may have even been visited by Puebloans fleeing the Spanish Reconquista in 1693.

Boulder with Jerry Grandel's petroglyph and shadow pointer. Photograph Jerry Grandel.

Close up view of the petroglyph. Photograph Jerry Grandel.

While hiking in an Open Space in 2014, Jerry Grandel found a petroglyph carved onto a boulder. As far as he knows it had not been reported before. It appeared to him to represent a sunrise or sunset. Curious if it was related to a solstice or equinox he came back to document it in January 2015. On the day of his visit, Jerry watched the point of a shadow cast by another boulder climb across the face of the rock to a spot under the petroglyph where some of the rock face has spalled away leaving a downward point. So the upward point of the shadow met the downward point on the rock face. According to Jerry’s statement this was at approximately 12:00 PM.

Plot of shadow pointer on the boulder. Photograph and graphics Jerry Grandel.

Jerry has since plotted the arc of the point of the shadow - shown here.

If facing the petroglyph a person is also facing north, so the petroglyph is facing essentially South. Also, since his recording visit was at the time of year when the sun is lowest in the sky, it is probably safe to assume that the shadow pointer will never get any closer to the petroglyph itself.

Diagram of the petroglyph, Peter Faris.

Sand Katsina case mask, p. 59, Hopi Kachina Dolls, Harold Colton, 1959, U. of N.M. Press.

So, this petroglyph is most probably inspired by the sunset from that point. One slight possibility, however, that harks back to those Puebloans escaping the Spanish Reconquista is that the petroglyph bears a slight resemblance to a somewhat distorted katsina case mask. Who knows?

Still, any new discovery is a wonderful thing. In all my years of hunting the wild petroglyph I am confident I found a number that were nowadays unknown. Indeed, once in Chaco Canyon on a trip guided by a Park Ranger I pointed a petroglyph out that the ranger said he had never seen before, I know something of the thrill of discovery.

Good work Jerry, keep looking up.