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.