Petrified Forest National Park: Rock Art

A cairn found in Cohab Canyon, Capitol Reef National Park.

Frank and Anne's Canyon Country Hiking and Camping Notebook.

Petrified Forest National Park

Campsite

This page contains a discussion of the rock art found within Petrified Forest National Park. All photographs are from our our personal collection. If you'd like to see more rock art from this location, or if you'd like to see higher resolution or larger images, send us an e-mail message and we'll see what we can do.

Rock Art

There are many examples of rock art within Petrified Forest National Park, but most are not accessible to tourists and those that are available for viewing are protected by barriers. This is understandable, due to vandalism, but it does make it difficult to get a good view and take usable photos. The few that are presented here are the best that I could capture with my current camera and at the distances allowed.

Newspaper Rock, one of the stops within the Park, is located a Map Coordinates (NAD83): 34 57.74 N; 109 47.968 W; at an elevation of 5,342 feet.

For more information on how to preserve and protect these priceless historic treasures:

See American Antiquities Act of 1906.
See Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979.
Archaeological Resources Protection Act Hotline: 800-227-7286.
See Archaeological Site Etiquette.

	This is one of the main petroglyph images represented within the Park. It is near Puerco Pueblo. The most prominent image appears to be some sort of stork or heron with a small person or child in its beak. Notice also the two round faces, one in the upper left and the other in the lower right. Compare them to the larger Smiley Face Images found on another surface nearby.

	This panel is also near the Puerco Pueblo. It shows a variety of images, including the several anthropomorphs. (Note: This image is slightly blurred due to the use of a small zoom lens.)

This image is also a bit blurry due to the use of a low quality zoom lens. But it does show the various anthropomorphs represented here, as well as several other characters.

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More Rock Art

Some of the following images are a bit blurry. This is due to less than ideal camera equipment and the fact that the Park Service no longer allows tourists to get up close to these images. It is obvious in some areas that the panels have been vandalized by selfish individuals. In any case, I was forced to use an inadequate zoom lens under poor lighting conditions. At least the images are visible, if not perfectly crisp and clear. Even a poor image is better than no image.

All of these photos have been resized and manipulated in Photoshop to give the best representation of the image. Some color distortion is inevitable. If you would like to see higher quality versions of these shots, or if you would like to use these images for any purpose, please contact us and we would be glad to help if we can.

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This page was last updated Friday, June 5, 2009

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