When I was done with the Trinity test site, I rode on. I decided to go around the East side of the White Sands Misile Range (which is about 100 miles long) and maybe visit the "white sands" park in the South.
On the way there was a sign that said there were a bunch of petroglyphs if I rode 5 miles down a little side road.
So I went down the side road and true enough there were petroglyphs...
Lots and lots of them...
Apparently some 24000 of them!
They are in the middle of nowhere out in the desert of southern New Mexico. They cover many of the rocks on one diminutive and otherwise indestinguishable small bouldery hill.
I walked around and had a look and took a bunch of pictures, but there are so many of them that you kinda get "all petroglyphed out" very quickly (As you have probably done looking at these few pictures).
There were also of course the expected more recent additions of "Jeff + Jane", and "Bill 1997" and simmilarly empty scratchings.
I found as usual that these made me very dissapointed in "modern people", but then it occured to me that with 24000 of these things here from the past, that they may well be just an older form of grafiti too...
But they were definitely done with a great deal more effort and care than the modern scratchings... Sign of the times?
I dont know, but it seems to me that the old ones are very "right brain" and creative, while the new ones are very "left brain" and very empty.
Our litteracy is certainly a wonderfull tool and we gained a lot when we learned it, but I think we lost something too.
