Art Rocks

A Thing from space! An uncouth being, risen from the dead for Halloween!

No, it's just another petroglyph. Like the other petroglyph I shared, this one is also in Joshua Tree National Park, not far from the previous one.

But as before, how do we know what this rock art means? How accurate is the depiction? What if the ancient artist simply rendered what s/he saw? Does the thought make you wonder what else might exist among us, possibly unseen by our modern-world eyes?

Welcome to rock art, where art rocks!

Portrait in Rock? Or...?

Whoa!!! It's autumn, and here's a picture of a football!

No, wait -- maybe that's a mask, with a big frown, furled eyebrows and faint eyes and nose.

Maybe it's a portrait of an extraterrestial.

Hard to say. It's one of the petroglyphs in Joshua Tree National Park. I doubt that the ancient ones who made this rock carving knew what a football was, and we today can only guess as to its meaning -- if it has a "meaning" at all. Maybe it was simply the equivalent of a modern-day doodle, as we might scribble on a piece of paper (a much easier process than chiseling into rock!) when we're feeling a little bored.

I'm sure I'll say this again, but sometimes I wish I had a time machine. There are SO many things I'd love to know. Of course, having a TM would open up the possibility of changing things in the past that could affect the world today.

Maybe it's safer just to guess about the past ... and keep alive our wonder and amazement about things we can't really know about.