Zuni Rock Art Blogging 2

For your enjoyment, I'm back with some more prehistoric petroglyphs from Zuni Pueblo in west central New Mexico. As I mentioned in this post there are some beautiful examples of rock art from an area near the northern edge of the reservation. I have always liked this cliff face

which has a variety of geometrics, anthropomorphs, some deer, and you can even see one of the classic humpback flute players (Kokopelli) on the right side of the panel. The desert varnish has left a fine dark field for the artists to peck through and show the lighter sandstone beneath.

A detail of one section shows this fairly realistic deer

which incorporates aspects of the rock in defining the animal's stomach. He is emphatically male and his antlers are rendered more realistically than in most other prehistoric deer petroglyphs in the region.

Another favorite of mine from this panel is this horned frog

who has a nice symmetry, though the artist didn't think it necessary to do much on representing the head. Perhaps the wide, spiny body and squat legs were the essence of the horned frog for him.