AN ASSUMED WESTERN MESSAGE PETROGLYPH READ WITH BLISS SYMBOLS:

       

The Cameo Colorado Panel. Photograph by John Greer.   

It should go without saying that any mark made on rock has significance to the study of rock art. What we dismiss as vandalism is also data. One longtime mystery in the study of rock art has been symbols that are commonly called Western Mystery Petroglyphs or Western Message Petroglyphs (WMPs). These are usually dismissed as ‘modern hoaxes,’ even vandalism.

These have been seriously studied for some time by Leigh Marymor who has made considerable progress in analyzing some of the inscriptions. 

“The term “Western Message Petroglyphs” (WMPs) refers to a number of petroglyph sites found scattered among eight western states that are recognized by their shared image content and layout. The imagery is drawn largely from a mash-up of late historic Native American sign-gesture language and picture-writing traditions inter-mixed with pan-cultural imagery from around the world. An increasing number of sites that fit this mold have been reported over the past 85 years or so, currently numbering [40] in all. There is no question that these sites date to post-European contact based on images in some panels that depict Euro-American cultural content (e.g., western-style house, rifle, whiskey keg, horse, etc.). The post-contact era is also apparent in the method used in rendering the engraved images evidenced by the smooth angular lines and chisel strikes produced by metal tools.”(Marymor 2023)

Drawing of the Cameo Blissymbolics panel by Daved Lee.

The fact that they were apparently created with metal tools has led much of the field of rock art research to discount them as not worth serious study. But they are also data and should be studied for possible significance.

Far and away the greatest progress on finding meaning in these enigmatic passages has been made by Leigh Marymor.

“Marymor is a past President of the American Rock Art Research Association and has served several terms as chair of their Conservation Committee. He has received numerous awards for his work in Conservation and Preservation activities, as well as lifetime achievement in rock art studies and documentation. Leigh Marymor is also the Compiler of Rock Art Studies: A Bibliographic Database. The RASBdb project is a searchable bibliographic database of the World's rock art literature and contains more than 55,450 citations as of January 2026. The RASBdb was hosted as a joint project between the Bancroft Library (University of California - Berkeley) and the Bay Area Rock Art Research Association (BARARA) from 2003 - 2016.  In fall of 2016, BARARA affiliated with the Museum of Northern Arizona to continue the free and open access to the  RASBdb Project." (https://mna.academia.edu/LeighMarymor. 2026)

Marymor has recently made a further step in this study by reading one assumed Western Mystery Petroglyph inscription in the little-known form of picture-writing known as Blissymbolics.

As perhaps the most knowledgeable researcher on WMPs Marymor describes them as following.

“While shared imagery and historic landscape settings bind WMP sites together as a coherent whole, stylistic and compositional variations exist. Classic examples feature narrative picture-texts arranged in one line, or in two or more parallel rows (Figure 1), but the database also includes examples of WMPs laid out in clusters, brief phrases, and minimalist panels limited to one or two images (Marymor 2023:2, 14).” (Marymor 2026:9)

By applying statistical analysis to these inscriptions, Marymor not only found them worthy of serious study, but he also made notable progress in deciphering some of them.

“Approximately 70% of the WMP’s 255-image vocabulary appears to derive from a mash-up of late historic Native American picture-writing traditions. Another 24% of the images borrow from diverse global systems (e.g. Maya, Egyptian, Chinese), and the remaining 6% are generic or unidentified (Marymor 2023:4). The repetition of individual images, image compounds, brief image phrases, and formal layout among WMP panels support the hypothesis of a shared authorship—a central author operating with a small group of others who were in-the-know, operating between approximately 1880 and 1930 (Marymor and Marymor 2016:76–78).” (Marymor 2025:9)

In 2026, Marymor turned his attention to a supposed WMP inscription that had been discovered near Cameo, Colorado. 

”A linear rock engraving at Cameo, Colorado, was initially documented on the MysteryGlyphs.com website by Provo, Utah, independent researchers Terry Carter and Shawn Davies (n.d.). Leigh Marymor first encountered a photograph of the Cameo rock engravings there in 2014 and agreed with Carter and Davies that the linear march of pan-cultural ideograms appeared to represent the WMP style. Also, the semi-remote site location conformed well with the pattern seen at other WMP sites. Western Message Petroglyphs are located along historic wagon and rail corridors, dating to the period of western expansion at nodes along those routes that share associations with historic town sites, mines, quarries, and often times, features of the Mormon cultural sphere. The Cameo panel is located on a semi-remote rock wall adjacent to an old horse trail at the head of Main Canyon. The WMP panel overlooks the Palisades coal mining district located in the far distance down canyon.” (Marymor 2025:9)

 Charles Bliss demonstrating Blissymbols to young disabled language student. Public domain image from letterformarchive.com.

In a search for more information Marymor (2026) “uploaded a drawing of the Cameo panel to Google Chrome’s image search engine in January 2025.” This resulted in the revelation that images from this inscription were a 100% match with a writing system known as Blissymbolics.

The Cameo Colorado panel deciphered in Blissymbolics by  Leigh Marymor.

“Blissymbolics—a pictographic writing system developed by Charles K. Bliss between 1942 and 1949. Charles K. Bliss, an Austrian chemical engineer, semiotician and Jewish holocaust survivor, fled with his wife to a refugee community in Shanghai during World War II, and eventually settled in Sydney, Australia. From 1942 to 1949, Bliss passionately pursued the development of a universal picture-writing system that would enable communication without reliance on alphabet-specific systems. He developed his system with hundreds of picture words and thousands of complex image compounds, complete with rules of syntax and spacing. Although the project dominated the rest of his life, his universal picture-writing system never achieved wide acclaim. Blissymbolics was adopted for use with disabled and language-challenged children, eventually enabling many who were completely language deprived to learn how to communicate using his system of Blissymbols . The persistence of his system is evidenced by the works of the Blissymbolics Communication International Foundation, its website, and teaching resources on Bliss Online (n.d.) that include an online dictionary and Blissymbol writing and translation toolkit.” (Marymor 2025:10) With this lead toward possible meaning Leigh was able to translate the inscription. His resulting translation read “I want to walk out of here and possess a woman, in order to feel excited, I’ll walk with no clothes on.” (Marymor 2025:11)

His assumption, based upon the remote area of the inscription, is that the risqué engraving is analogous to Basque sheepherder arborglyphs found throughout the mountainous West. A remarkable detective story with a very amusing conclusion. Congratulation to Leigh Marymor and the other people who were involved. For full details of the search and the solution read the original paper by Leigh Marymor listed in the References below.

NOTE 1: The Rock Art Studies Bibliographic Database search engine at the Museum of Northern Arizona is located at: https://musnaz.org/search_rock_art_studies_db/.

NOTE 2: Several other individuals are listed in Marymor’s article as having been involved in finding the solution – Terry Carter, Shawn Davies, John and Mavis Greer, George Decker, Amy Marymor, and Judy Hilbish.

NOTE 3: I wish to express my gratitude to Leigh Marymor for permission to use his material and images, and his generous assistance with final corrections and editing.

REFERENCES:

Marymor, Leigh, 2025, A Western Message Petroglyph Site Falls from the Nest: Reclassifying the Cameo, Colorado, Panel through Blissymbolics, La Pintura, Volume 51, No. 3, Fall 2025, pages 9-12.

Marymor, Leigh, 2023, Western Message Petroglyphs: A Faux Indian Picture-Writing Project in the American West. Arts 12: 7. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12010007. Accessed online 12 February 26.

Wikipedia, Bliss Symbols, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbols.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Marymor, Leigh, 2023, Western Message Petroglyphs: A Faux Indian Picture-Writing Project in the American West. In World Rock Art Topical Collection, edited by R.G. Bednarik. Arts 12(1):Issue 7. MDPI AG, Basel. Electronic document,https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/12/1/7, accessed November 6, 2025.

Marymor, Leigh, and Amy Marymor, 2016, Western Message Petroglyphs: Esoterica in the Wild West. In American Indian Rock Art, Volume 42, edited by Ken Hedges, pp. 67–79. American Rock Art Research Association, San Jose, California.

A PETROGLYPHIC RECORD OF PHARAONIC CONQUEST IN THE SINAI:

 There is a lot of activity in the rock art world in Egypt. Reports of new discoveries are seemingly coming out more frequently then ever. A recent report by Mustafa Nour El-Din, and Ludwig D. Morenz (2025) ascribed a petroglyphs panel in the Sinai Peninsula to a period of Egyptian military expansion as a record of conquest.

The conquest panel, lines marked in on photograph.  Photograph by M. Nour El-Din, drawing by E. Kiesel.

Writing for Archaeology Magazine online Dario Radley set the scene as follows. “Mustafa Nour El Din of the Aswan Inspectorate at the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities documented the carving during a field survey. Egyptologist Ludwig Morenz of the University of Bonn led the study of the images and inscriptions. The panel shows a large figure with raised arms facing a kneeling man struck by an arrow. The wounded figure’s posture signals defeat and submission. Nearby, a boat appears carved in outline. Early Egyptian art often used boats as symbols of royal power and state presence.” (Radley 2026) A section of the panel above the boat has been battered out to remove part of the image. This likely represents another example of the instances in Egyptian history where one Pharaoh attempted to have a predecessor erased from their history.

The conquest panel close-up, lines marked in on photograph.  Photograph by M. Nour El-Din, drawing by E. Kiesel.

El Din and Morenz (2025) interpret the panel as following. “Looking at the inscription we might understand the figure of the striding man as a representation of the god Min himself, but lacking specific iconographic indications. However, we should also consider the early date from a time of developing iconograpic conventions in depicting gods in the Nile Valley as well as the cultural periphery. We cannot properly decide, whether the striding man with raised arms depicts an Egyptian ruler (but no name or title is given) or the god Min (the inscription supports that understanding, but the iconography is different from what we might expect for Min: no crown, no phallus). If the striding man would have been depicted with the red crown he can be identified as Egyptian king, but that iconographic identification remains doubtful. Considering the inscription, it does not seem impossible to understand the main figure in the scene as an image of the god Min. Furthermore, looking at the entire composition, we can assume the boat to have been associated with the Egyptian ruler, the triumphant man with god Min and the subdued and killed man with the local inhabitants.” (El Din and Morenz 2025:87) Identification of the figure with the god Min is postulated because of a nearby text carved into the cliff which reads “(God) Min, ruler of copper ore / the mining region.” (El Din and Morenz 2025:87) Whether or not the large figure is the Pharaoh or the god Min the Pharaonic presence is definitely indicated by the presence of the Egyptian style boat.

The conquest panel drawing by E. Kiesel.

This panel is likened to a propaganda poster from the government. “Researchers see the composition as a message placed in a visible location along a travel corridor. The standing victor likely represents Egyptian authority under divine protection. The kneeling figure represents local inhabitants. The imagery forms a narrative of domination linked to resource control. Such visual claims supported economic expansion and reinforced ideological control over distant zones.” (Radley 2026) In this case, the nearby copper mines.

So, is this panel a historical record, or an illustration of a myth or legend. “When looking at scenes of violence, the fundamental question of historical reality versus ideological patterns and visual staging arises, and this seems a big question deserving future research. However, the historical significance of this 5,000-year-old rock picture depicting a scene of Pharaonic dominance lies in its value as evidence of Egyptian colonization of south-western Sinai during the Proto- and Early Dynastic periods. Why did Egyptian extensions of territorial claims beyond the Nile valley happen and why so early? To answer these questions, more detailed archaeological research in this area is needed. However, thanks to the surveys conducted by Mustafa Nour El-Din, we already know some metallurgical installations for copper processing (in this area), as well as copper slag, awaiting publication. It is likely that Wadi Khamila was already an important mining area for raw materials, especially copper ore and perhaps also turquoise, during the 4th/3rd millennium BC.” (El Din and Morenz 2025:90) As the military strength of the Egyptian empire was based upon copper the explanation of this panel as marking a site of early Egyptian expansion and conquest for mineral wealth seems to make the most sense. The presence of copper ore and processing, as well as possibly turquoise, would make this an important acquisition.

NOTE: Some images in this column 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:

El-Din, Mustafa Nour and Ludwig D. Morenz, 2025, Wadi Khamila, the god Min and the beginning of Pharonic Dominance in Sinai 5000 years ago, freunde-abrahams.de. Accessed 30 January 2026.

Radley, Dario, 2026, 5,000 year old rock art in Sinai shows early Egyptian conquest and control of copper mines, 30 January 2026, Archaeology magazine online, https://archaeologymag.com. Accessed online 30 January 2026.

 

A ROMAN STONE GAME BOARD:

 

Roman stone game board. Internet photograph, public domain.

I have published a number of columns in the past on RockArtBlog about game boards in rock art (see the cloud index at the bottom). This one is about an example attributed to the Romans from between seventeen and fifteen hundred years ago that was found in the Netherlands.

“A limestone object recovered from the Roman settlement of Coriovallum, now Heerlen in the Netherlands, has provided rare evidence for how people played board games during the Roman period. The object, preserved in Het Romeins Museum, carries a pattern of incised lines on a flattened surface. Archeologists long suspected a link to play, yet no known Roman or earlier European game matches the design.” (Radley 2026) This presented researchers with a fascinating mystery. Can they find out what game was played on an unfamiliar board from that long ago? “Researchers used AI to reconstruct the rules of a board game carved into a stone found in the Dutch city of Heerlen. The team concludes that this type of game was played several centuries earlier than previously assumed.” (Phys.org 2026)

“Coriovallum was a Roman town in the province of Germania Inferior founded under the reign of emperor Augustus (27 BC–AD 14) and inhabited until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476. The remains of Coriovallum lie beneath present day Heerlen.” (Crist 2026:112)

The game board with pieces in place. Photograph from Universiteit Leiden. 

Although the artifact’s provenance, the details of its discovery have been lost it is believed to have been excavated in Heerlen during the late 19^th or early 20^th centuries. “Contextual dating, based on the typical archeological strata of Heerlen, places the creation and used of this board between 1,700 and 1,500 years ago.” (Carvajal 2026)

The flattened stone board has a pattern of lines engraved into the upper surface. “The engraving consists of a rectangle defined by a perimeter groove within which four diagonal lines intersect to form a kind of X shape, accompanied by a single straight horizontal line at one end of the rectangle, and apparently simple but enigmatic configuration.” (Carvajal 2026) This is really not how I would describe the design of the lines on the surface, but interestingly, instead of a series of similar boxes, pits or outlines the design essentially consists of a large rectangle divided up into differing sized rectangular and triangular spaces. The design is symmetrical with both ends the same.

Roman game pieces from Coriovallum. Image from Het Romeins Museum.

These questions particularly interested an archeologist named Walter Crist. “Archeologist Walter Crist encountered the stone in 2020 in the collection of the Thermenmuseum – which has since been renamed the Roman Museum. The worked limestone slab, measuring 21 by 14.5 centimeters, was found in the ground in Heerlen in the late 19^th or early 20^th century. Heerlen was once the important Roman settlement of Coriovallum. Crist specializes in ancient games and was immediately intrigued.” (Phys.org 2026)

Crist assumed that playing a game on this board would leave microscopic wear marks that might point to directions of movement of pieces. “Crist examined the stone under a microscope. ‘Wear was visible on the lines of the stone, exactly at the places where you would slide your playing piece.’ He enlisted the help of researchers from Heerlen and Maastricht. Restaura restoration studio from Heerlen produced highly detailed 3D scans.” (Phys.org 2026) They found the traces they were looking for suggesting possible patterns on the stone surface.

The wear patterns that were detected apparently followed along the diagonal lines on the stone. “To test whether play could explain the wear, researchers combined archeological observation with artificial intelligence-driven simulations. The team used the Ludii system, a platform designed to model historical board games. Two automated players competed against each other on a digital version of the stone board. The simulations drew from many rule systems recorded for small Northern European games, including examples from Scandinavia and Italy. The results showed strong agreement between the observed wear and simulations based on blocking games. In this type of game players aim to restrict an opponent’s movement rather than capture pieces. The simulated play repeatedly concentrated movement along the same lines seen on the stone surface.” (Radley 2026) While the results of the artificial intelligence analysis seem to confirm gameplay, they could not actually replicate for sure the actual game, which Crist (2026:1) refers to as Ludus Coriovalli.

Possible placement of pieces for the game as determined by AI. Image from Crist et al.

“The use wear on the stone was plausibly created through gameplay, moving playing pieces of a size and material composition consistent with examples common at Roman sites, including Coriovallum. - The fact that the observed wear pattern is only apparent in parallel with the incised lines suggests that those lines were meaningful for the action that produced abraded wear along them.” (Crist 2026:121) Although the wear on the stone surface was not as serious as the wear on the Monopoly board I played as a kid, it could be detected with microscopy. And the wear patterns suggested the possible movements of the pieces.

NOTE: Some images in this column 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:

Carvajal, Guiellermo, 2026, A Roman Board Game Found in Ancient Coriovallum Rewrites the History of Strategy Games, 10 February 2026, https://www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2026/02/a-roman-board-game-found-in-ancient-coriovallum-rewrites-the-history-of-strategy-games/. Accessed online 10 February 2026.

Crist, Walter et al., 2026, Ludus Coriovalli: using artificial intelligence-driven simulations to identify rules for an ancient board game, Antiquity, Vol. 100 (409), 111-126. Accessed online 11 February 2026.

Phys.org, 2026, Rules of unknown board game from the Roman period revealed, 10 February 2026, Leiden University. Accessed online 10 February 2026.

Radley, Dario, 2026,  AI simulations reveal a Roman era board game in the Netherlands, pushing Europe’s blocking games back centuries, 10 February 2026, https://archaeologymag.com/2026/02/roman-era-board-game-in-the-netherlands/. Accessed online 10 Feb. 2026.