It has been a little while since I visited Arkeo.net**, a Finnish (no English) archaeological web portal written by Marjukka M&#228kel&#228. It is a wonderful resource on the activities and research mainly into Finnish and some Russian and Scandinavian archaeology. The latest news points to a great photo site on Norway’s Rock drawings. Just look at those fabulous details of wonderful Viking-like ships! The text is in Norwegian only, which I can’t read, but there are numerous interesting photos. There are further links to images to explore at the bottom of the page for Denmark and Sweden, like the Tanum site, and still more in Norway. Enjoy!
** Sadly Arkeo.net no longer exists.

Erkki Luoma-aho* presents his photographs of petroglyphs at Siberia’s Tom and Jenisei Rivers and at Valcamonica in the Italian Alps, taken during his travels in 2000 and 2001. The site is in Finnish, but it consists mostly of photos.

An interesting point that he makes is that in Scandinavia many of the petroglyphs were painted originally to bring out the details, but these have weathered and worn off with time. Luoma-aho has also “painted” these images, digitally of course, to bring up the details. To view, begin at the list and click at a link. Click on the image so you can compare it with and without the digital enhancement – notice how some of these are barely discernible. (Under the image are three red icons for navigation: the left hunter takes you back one image, the center one back to the list, and the right one forward to the next photo.)

Now that was just an introduction! There’s lots more to explore, such as his fascinating journey to Siberia presented in English.

UPDATE Jan 2014: *Sadly his site is no longer accessible and/or the other links are no longer available, so have been removed. Try a search, if interested as he has published some of his photos.

Petra, Jordan has long been on my dream wish list of places I’d love to visit and use in my artwork.

Now Art Daily reports that the Cincinnati Art Museum will feature Petra: Lost City of Stone, the most comprehensive exhibition ever presented on the ancient city of Petra and its creators, the Nabataeans. I like it when museums have a website like this: a QuickTime tour of Petra and lots of interesting information to browse through, though short on photos of the collection…makes up for not being able to visit in person, doesn’t it? Check the FAQ’s to find out how come the Museum has so much work by the Nabataeans, and learn that Petra is a Greek word that literally means “rock”.

National Geographic magazine had a wonderful article on Petra in their December 1998 issue, and some of those photos can be seen on their site.

News from Stone Pages: Rare Rock Art defaced in Utah

Utah archeologists are fuming with the discovery that ancient art has been vandalized. The Buckhorn Pictograph in Emery County (U.S.A.) has been defaced with charcoal and chalk. The Bureau of Land Management is already putting up a $1,000 reward for information on suspects, and plans to try and remove the vandalism this weekend.

The rock art is some of the most accessible site for the public to see and is very rare. The vandalism is extremely disappointing for land managers. This site was recently cleared of vandalism in 1995 during a project to restore the rock art. Now the same rock art conservator, Constance Silver is being flown in from New York City this weekend so she can attempt to remove the vandalism without ruining the rock art. The BLM is asking for help in finding who is responsible and is offering that $1,000 reward.
Source: KSL News (4 August 2004)

Regular readers may recall I recently wrote about the fantastic rock art in Utah and the southwest US. I wonder if buckhorn wash* is the vandalized wall?

This kind of news makes me very sad and angry. Such vandals should be hung by their toes!

*link expired and removed

A few days ago I wrote about the endangered rock art of Nine Mile Canyon in Utah. One of the links for sites of images was that of Doak Heyser. While browsing elsewhere, I found a link to Heyser’s Southwestern US Rock Art Gallery, which includes the Nine Mile photos. I also found John Campbell’s Petroglyphs & Rock Paintings. These impressive galleries of numerous high quality photographs of some of the most beautiful artworks on rock have left me enthralled and awed and wanting to share them with readers – enjoy!

News from Stone Pages (July 24.04): Court backs natural gas probe of Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon

A federal judge gave the go-ahead Wednesday for a company to search for natural gas near Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon, renowned for its ancient rock art, ruling that the work would not threaten the ancient etchings. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan dismissed the challenge by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance to the exploration plans in redrock slot canyons adjacent to Nine Mile Canyon, saying it failed to prove that damage would be done by the gas work.

In May, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Nine Mile Canyon area one of its most endangered places in the country because of the proposed gas development. The Bureau of Land Management says Nine Mile Canyon has more than 10,000 American Indian images etched into the canyon walls, making it the richest collection of rock paintings in the nation. Source: Salt Lake Tribune (22 July 2004)

The National Trust site, which has some images of the petroglyphs, states National Trust named Nine Mile Canyon one of America’s 11 most endangered historic places…Located in a remote part of Utah, Nine Mile Canyon is often called ‘the world’s longest art gallery’ as it contains more than 10,000 images carved onto canyon walls by Native Americans. This area is actually 40 miles long. These petroglyphs and pictographs are attributed to the Archaic, Fremont and Ute people begun about 1700 years ago.

The Religion & Ethics Newsweekly has an interview about how the drive for new energy development collides with the obligation to protect a sacred place.

Larry Sasputch, a spiritual leader of the Ute Indian tribe said: They call it rock art, because that’s all it is to them. It’s just like looking at our dances and stuff, that’s entertainment — it’s art, and that’s as far as they carry it. They don’t understand the symbolism. They don’t understand the spirituality. All they understand is what they see…. It’s really how native people think. Everything is connected to the Creator. This here is our church. These cliffs, they’re as high as any cathedral. They’re all natural. They’re what God put here. All those other churches and cathedrals — that’s man-made. This is already here.

Jerry Spangler is an archaeologist who has written a new roadside guide to the sacred sites of Nine Mile Canyon. Like others, he worries that the rumble from the seismic testing and the trucks and the dust will damage the carvings and drawings. He says,’ I think the risk to Nine Mile is too great. [It] is unlike any other place I’ve ever read about, let alone known about. We know of approximately 1,000 sites in Nine Mile Canyon today. We think we have maybe 5 percent identified; that’s absolutely amazing.‘

More images of the rock art:
by Max Bertola
by D.Heyser
Utah Outdoors