Yesterday At Courthouse Rock
Apr 7, 2024 10:59:33 #
Apr 7, 2024 11:04:43 #
Apr 7, 2024 11:04:56 #
Very nice! That John Smith guy gets around! Is #2 a Tortoise?
Apr 7, 2024 13:04:15 #
Excellent photography, Jim. Any idea how much of this is modern graffiti?
Apr 7, 2024 14:35:46 #
Cany143
Loc: SE Utah
UTMike wrote:
Excellent photography, Jim. Any idea how much of this is modern graffiti?
There's the usual amount of graffiti --mostly names scratched (most of them so lightly that they can barely be seen) in here or there-- but that all appears to be from the late 1800's or early 1900's rather than anything more ostensibly 'recent'. The site itself is relatively easy to access, and cottonwoods and lush vegetation in the canyon below belies the fact of plentiful water (Courthouse Spring) that people have relied upon for centuries. 'John Smith / Apr? Aug? 1882' was probably a cattleman/cowboy. Most of the rock art is stylistically/thematically that of Ute production, which would make it less than 500 years old, but at the very end of the ledge are several Archaic Era 'Barrier Canyon Style' petroglyphs (one of which is shown here in #4) that could easily be 2000 or more years old.
Sadly, there used to be more. But rather than having been simply defaced with graffiti, in 2002 someone 'removed' --scrubbed off somehow-- one of the more striking images that had been there, and had been known as 'The Blue Buffalo panel'. It, along with several other elements had originally been 'painted' using a light blue pigment made from glauconite. (I have shots on film from before that desecration, but nothing scanned). As well, there's another panel --what once had been a fairly striking Fremont (c. 850 ~ 1300 A.D.) pictograph site-- that's maybe a 10-minute boulder-hop away, and it had been (obscenely) vandalized rather more recently. I'd used an image of that Fremont site in the rock art section I wrote for the "2004-2006 [Canyonlands N.P.] River Corridor Architecture and Rock Art Survey" publication, but I'd used that before the panel had been defaced. Ten, twelve, twenty years ago virtually nobody'd go there; now, people camp in the space immediately below.
Apr 7, 2024 14:57:35 #
Cany143
Loc: SE Utah
Retired CPO wrote:
Very nice! That John Smith guy gets around! Is #2 a Tortoise?
A tortoise? I wouldn't know. Mostly because I've learned not to interpret rock art elements quite as 'literally' as many others do. What I do know, though, is that the 'pointer' in the 12 o'clock position (as seen in the pic) within the circle points toward the rising cliff's edge, and that is due north. What any of the other 'pointer' lines might point toward is stuff I could only speculate.
Apr 7, 2024 14:57:42 #
Apr 7, 2024 18:32:19 #
Cany143 wrote:
Other people's art.
Beautifully photographed
Apr 7, 2024 19:20:12 #
Apr 8, 2024 07:15:01 #
Cany143 wrote:
Other people's art.
…I really like the composition of your second image…
Apr 8, 2024 07:55:03 #
Apr 8, 2024 10:57:54 #
Apr 8, 2024 16:59:14 #
Cany143 wrote:
A tortoise? I wouldn't know. Mostly because I've learned not to interpret rock art elements quite as 'literally' as many others do. What I do know, though, is that the 'pointer' in the 12 o'clock position (as seen in the pic) within the circle points toward the rising cliff's edge, and that is due north. What any of the other 'pointer' lines might point toward is stuff I could only speculate.
So how did those old timers know where Due North was?
ps. I think it's a tortoise! I think I see a head at north east and at least one foot at south east.
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