We are used to thinking about rock art as being created on the flat face of a cliff, boulder or cave wall. There are many examples, however, where the image is carved or painted on an uneven surface, not just rough, but over or around a projection of the rock face. In many instances this seems to be an attempt to create a three-dimensional image.
At the Three Rivers petroglyphs site in New Mexico there are a number of human face petroglyphs. They are not as ornate as many from the Rio Grande area so it is not clear whether they are intended to represent masks or not. Some of them, however, have been carved around the corner of a boulder in a seemingly intentional effort at three-dimensional imagery. These images were carved by the Jornada Mogollon people between about 900 and 1300 CE.
By its very nature rock art is produced on generally uneven surfaces so there is some depth variation in most examples. This seems different, however, this looks very much like the corners of boulders were sought out to carve the faces on to produce the three-dimensional effect.
Margaret Berrier (personal communication 2026) described these faces as “corner masks” and provided me with pictures of one that she has in her possession, adding she knows of another one. I am not completely comfortable with designating many of the faces at Three Rivers as masks. They lack much of the decorative detail found in acknowledge mask images from elsewhere in the southwest. I rather think that some of them are simply meant to be faces, perhaps portraits. Of course, if they have the added details they can and will, of course, be defined as masks.
At the Three Rivers Site government signage identifies the makers of the imagery as Mogollon people, various other references use the phrase Jornada. In fact the people of the region of the Tularosa Basin, which the Three Rives Petroglyph Site is on the edge of, are referred to as Jornada Mogollon so the terms seem to be used almost interchangeably.
In his 1998 book ‘Signs of Life: rock art of the Upper Rio Grande’, Dennis Slifer calls the petroglyphs of faces found in the Upper Rio Grand ‘masks.’ “Apparently the masks represented ancestral spirits, similar to the kachinas of the modern Pueblo people. Consequently, the meanings must have been similar to those of Hopi, Zuni, and other pueblos in the Upper Rio Grande region.” (Slifer 1998:188) As I said above, however, Slifer’s masks usually have more detail and decorative elements than the faces at Three Rivers.
Polly Schaafsma (1992) somewhat splits the difference as she refers to “Masks and faces are featured in both Jornada Style paintings and petroglyphs. These elements are only occasional in western Jornada Style sites, including the Mimbres Valley, but figure more prominently in the rock art of the Rio Grande Valley and the Tularosa Basin” (p.67). Schaafsma has also recognized the phenomenon of faces on rock corner and projections, stating “Variations on the mask themes are faces lacking outlines and masks carved on rock angles. The latter, in which the corner becomes the nose region or the most prominent part of the face, are not unusual.” (p.67) Polly’s description here is right on, when the faces are produced around the corner of the rock the nose is generally right on the angle.
Joan Price (2018:185) presented a couple of interesting theories about the possible reason for these corner depictions at Three Rivers. “Innumerable glyphs of faces and maps span smooth or sharp corners of single stones with facial directional orientation or continual lines, chains of simple visual elements, feet, animal tracks and more. These wrap around stones were termed ‘animated canvas’. Concave or convex surfaces selected for glyphs take into consideration the play of light and/or dark over the course of a day suggesting a core concept in Puebloan and other indigenous languages of balance between opposing forces within a person and a stone that emphasizes that idea.” (Price 2018:185) First she suggests that they were produced to emphasize the effects of light on the differing angles of the rock, and second that this is related to the concept of opposition between dark and light, winter and summer, etc. that is so prevalent in the beliefs of people in the American southwest.
I wish I could present numerous examples of these faces from many other sites, but alas, I cannot. Although I have found records of some outside of this area there do not seem to be any locations with anywhere near this large a concentration. In this case it seems to have been primarily a local idea that came and went with the Jornada people in the area of the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site (either that, or there are just a whole lot of them that I have not been able to find records for). And anyone who does have this information please let me know. In either case, the prevalence of them at this location lead me to conclude that the carvers of these faces were purposely giving them three dimensions in their portrayals in an attempt to make them more lifelike.
REFERENCES:
Berrier, Margaret, personal communication, February 2026.
Price, Joan E., 2018, Clay and Stone: Petroglyphs at Three Rivers Petroglyph Site Compared with Mimbres Ceramic Painted Bowls, pp. 177-192, in Collected Papers from the 20th Biennial Mogollon Archaeology Conference, October 11-13, 2018, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, edited by Lonnie C. Ludeman. Accessed online 17 December 2025.
Schaafsma, Polly, 1992, Rock Art in New Mexico, Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Slifer, Dennis, 1998, Signs of Life: rock art of the Upper Rio Grande, Ancient City
Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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