San Rafael Swell
Rock Art:
Daisy Chain
This page contains a discussion of the rock art found on the Site Name Panel within the San Rafael Swell in Utah. 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.
The Daisy Chain is on a large dark colored rock which has rolled down from Cedar Mountain. The Fremont Culture petroglyphs here are pecked through the desert varnish and depict a life size trio holding hands. Parts of this site are marred by initial-making vandals who have badly marked the surface with names, addresses, and dates. There are smaller petroglyphs, including the ever present snake.
- Archaeological Resources Protection Act Hotline: 800-227-7286.
- See Archaeological Site Etiquette.
- See American Antiquities Act of 1906.
- See Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979.
- See More Rock Art Sites.
Other rock art sites within the San Rafael Swell:
Photo Gallery
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.
Select an image to see a full sized version.
| Anthropomorphs | |
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DC002: This is somewhat of a carrot man figure, but it is wider than usual and the torso is mostly hollow. The figure has a thin neck topped by a small head that comes to a point and has slightly droopy ears. |
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DC012: Three large Classic Vernal Style Fremont figures, with a couple of smaller anthropomorphs. The three major figures appear to be holding hands. |
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DC013: The right most of the three figures from DC012. It has the typical bucket head with earrings and a trapezoidal torso. The figure has a mouth, but no other obvious facial features, unless it has two eyes set far apart near the upper corners of the head. The gray spots are from a dirty lens facing the sun. |
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DC014: The middle figure from DC012 has the Classic Vernal Style head with what looks like a crown and two horns, as well as earrings. The figure also wears a breast plate. The figure has a mouth, but no other facial features. |
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DC015: The left most figure from DC012 has a square head with a single feather protruding from the top. The figure has earrings and a mouth, but no other facial features. This figure also has a heart mark that was obviously place on it well after the initial creation of the image. |
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DC016: This little figure appears to be the top half of a carrot man, with a long neck and round head with down turned horns on either side. |
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DC017: This small figure has the typical Fremont trapezoidal torso and bucket head. What is interesting about this figure is its short arms, and legs with large feet, with the figure's left foot displaying spread toes. There may also be some sort of headdress. There may also be a V-shaped representation of a breast plate. |
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DC021: This medium sized figure is by itself around the corner from the trio in DC012, within a tight gap between two portions of the stone. The figure has slit eyes, a round head, and what may be a long feather pointing off to one side. The figure seems to be pecked in outline, with some latter pecking filling in the body. |
| Geometric Figures and Patterns | |
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DC003: This interesting figure at first looks like a stick man lying on its side, with upraised arms and claw-like hands. But then there is that third leg that looks something like a canine zoomorph. Who knows? |
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DC004: This image shows two nicely formed circles that are set up high on the left side of one of the panels. |
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DC008: Two possibly zoomorphic figures. The upper one could represent a canine or feline figure with a long neck. The lower markings could represent a snake. |
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DC009: These strange markings give the impression of some sort of primitive hieroglyphs, mainly because of the way they are arranged in a row. Who knows what they might have meant to the person who created them. |
| Historic | |
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DC010: Just an interesting historic bit of graffiti. |
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DC011: More interesting historic graffiti. |
| Panels | |
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DC001: The first panel that one sees when approaching this site, showing ancient as well as more recent markings. |
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DC006: A closer look at some of the detail of the DC001 panel. |
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DC019: Another small panel that appears to show a snake and other figures. |
| Zoomorphs | |
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DC005: A pair of snakes. The larger snake, higher up, appears to be a horned snake. The smaller snake may be crawling from the crack near its tail, but we can be sure because of the spalling in that area. |
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DC007: A stick figure of a long necked zoomorph. |
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DC018: This zoomorph appears to be a canine of some sort. |
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DC022: This is a closer look and a slightly different view of DC018. Again, it looks like a stick figure of a canine. |
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DC020: Another snake, this time with an open mouth and a tongue. |
