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Petroglyphs at Three Rivers, NM

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The Three Rivers Petroglyphs Site lies in the Tularosa Basin, between Carrizozo and Tularosa, NM. These petroglyphs were chipped into the rock by the Jornada Mogollon people, between about 900 and 1400 CE.

The petroglyphs include animal and geometric images.

The petroglyphs were chipped into the rocks of a basalt ridge that rises above the valley floor.

The Sierra Blanca range rises to 11973 feet. Its winter snow-clad slopes are easily visible from El Paso, TX, about 100 miles away.

These footprints are part of over 21,000 petroglyphs at the Three Rivers site.

Many of the petroglyphs represent human forms. This appears to be a mask dissimilar in technique but similar in style to that of the masks at the Hueco Tanks site.

Here's another mask or face.

The site hosts, longtime residents of the area, indicated that this was an image of shaman.

The easily grasped features of this face serve both to connect us to the Mogollon and to frustrate us in not understanding what they communicated.

This image is similar to one described by Schaafsma as mask drawn by other Indians of the Rio Grande, found at Chochiti Reservoir. See Polly Schaafsma, Rock Art in New Mexico, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1992, page 127.

This human form is about three feet tall.

Although this looks like a face, my reading of Martineau suggests that these may be eyes and a direction, meaning something like ''Look over there.''

There are many, many circles among the Three Rivers petrolyphs. These were drawn so that one of the pair incorporated a feature of the rock.

Following Martineau, the symbol on the left is probably a locator combining two meanings: the referenced thing is in this direction (the straight line) and it's distant (the left-branching fork). What the locator is referencing is probably indicated by the symbol on the right. I cannot find a direct analog from Martineau; the closest meaning may be ‘’caves.’’ The locator appears to point to the canyon in the background, and the park hosts indicated that they had found additional petroglyphs in that canyon. See LeVan Martineau, The Rocks Begin to Speak, Las Vegas, NV: KC Publications, 1973.

There are many variations of circle symbols, and some are quite complex.

Following Martineau, the concentric circles may mean something like ‘’some held here,’’ but I do not have much guidance in figuring out what the bottom semi-circle means.

Another complex circular figure.

These three symbols appear on adjacent rocks.

This image is interesting for many reasons. Among these are that the sheep is shown as upright and thus alive, even with the arrows sticking into it. There's also an extraordinary amount of detail in the eye, the hoofs, and the body.

Another sheep, perhaps older.

I think this a turkey because of the three-toed bird's feet. It is possible that the line and the triangle represent an arrow piercing the bird.

This highly distinct bird may be carrying a snake in its beak.

Martineau wrote that quadrupeds, which he usually refers to as goats, often have symbolic rather than representational meanings. This animal, though, has relatively life-like proportions and a fully realized body.

In contrast, this goat shows the horns and legs of animal images with symbolic meaning, and its body clearly contains distinct symbols.

I can't tell if this fascinating image is that of human or animal.

This long-tailed animal is in front of another rock bearing a symbol.

This dead animal is surrounded with symbols of a bear claw, a foot, a hand, and perhaps a locator.

This symbol is nearly identical to the one shown in picture 15, and has a similar orientation with respect to the Sierra Blanca, although the adjacent locator symbol is much smaller.

Another nearly identical symbol. As I read Martineau, each half of the symbol may refer to a cave.

This complex symbol, set among others, must express a corresponding complex set of meanings. It's frustrating not to be able to interpret it.

This complex set of images incorporates images of the kinds seen in previous pictures.

Susie took many of the pictures seen here, including the next two.

David took the rest of the pictures.

The Jornada Mogollon village, whose inhabitants presumably inscribed the petroglyphs, was located in the valley floor just beyond the modern dirt road that now leads to the site.

This complex set of images includes humans, animals, locators and other symbols.

A complex tableau

The images in this complex set include a snake, a bird, what I take to be a large foot, locator symbols, and several circles.

This fascinating symbol consists of a hand under three concentric arcs.

This highly decorated symbol includes a concentric ring of triangles similar to that, for example, seen in the ‘’Speaking Rock’’ painting at Hueco Tanks.

The closest meaning I can find from Martineau would involve a group of people speaking with each other.

This enigmatic symbol could be a hand, a claw, an astronomical image, or something else entirely.

Another complex set of images

Following Martineau, these symbols may refer to and be locators for water holes.

These symbols have been here for at least 600 years, and probably hundreds of years more than that.

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