Saturday, January 9, 2016

Crack in the ruins

Wupatki National Monument, an article by Kelly Vaughn in January Arizona Highways magazine has photographs of a site known as "textile petroglyph central" on Horseshoe Mesa.

Joe lives there. I told him the photographs in the magazine show the best times really are morning and late afternoon. Without pause Joe snapped, "Every other time is too HOT!"


This is so ace it blows my mind.

The swirl is variously "water," "journey," "portal," and "creation" depending on context. One figure's hand is on the edge of the spiral as if beginning or ending a journey and the smaller figure's hand is centered for different effect. Very science fiction like.







These guys really liked to copyright their work.


Psych!

I don't know why they named it textile petroglyph central except probably for inspiring patterns for textiles. The symbols, the coloration, the spacing, the attitude inspire a lot more than textiles.





9 comments:

Jim in St Louis said...

Very cool.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Mel Brooks High Anxiety was a spoof of Hitchcock Vertigo.

I put that together all by myself.

AllenS said...

Look at the 4th picture down. Isn't that the early version of what you see in a family's back window of their car nowadays?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Speaking of whirlpool. I came across a Madeline Kahn video and I remembered she worked with Bill Cosby.

Do you think?

Madeline is dead. She died 16 years ago. At the height of Bill's extra curricular activities. Oh my goodness gracious.

bagoh20 said...

Some are not spirals, but rather concentric circles, so maybe those either don't represent a Journey, but represent some other band, or it could just be some lesser artist, who was likely critiqued in his time for being too derivative.

ricpic said...

Great art. It speaks to our deepest sense of vulnerability and possibility.

deborah said...

Neat, love it.

Christy said...

I never outgrew my 9 year old fascination with all things archeological, so I was thrilled when a tour of Misty Fjord in Alaska included getting up close to a petroglyph. I couldn't see it! Everyone else could, but I looked and looked and looked where directed and never saw it. Thus died the dreams of ever finding finding an Australopithecus bone fragment while sauntering along in the Great Rift Valley. I just don't see things.

Jim in St Louis said...

RE: Christy-
Your right in line with most kids that have a 'dinosaur' phase. I've never felt comfortable with getting into pretend world with kids, I hate that archness and fakery that some adults do with children. But I have had very serious and enjoyable conversations with 9 year olds about fossils, and ice ages, and mastodons.

I hope you accidentally find something big and they name it after you.