Valley of Fire, Petroglyphs

It can be said that the images at Atl Atl Rock all appear to be part of one message or one story. It is inferred by Whitley that images from several cultures may be represented here. (1)

Does the image extraction process support this idea by extracting images with different color characteristics?

We took the base image and performed several steps on it. First the image was posterized to level 5. The result is shown on the right in a much reduced image.

The three sheep in the middle pop out conspicuously.

There are a few other images which also stand out when we further try to draw out the images.

We collected them into a separate panel and eliminated the other images. The area in question was highlighted by reducing the brightness of the rest of the image around it, thus producing the inset.

The result is that all the figures that appear to be 're' pecked or 're' incised appear alone,

without the other images around them. Whether or not these images were 'added' later, they were still re-done, re-etched. The cuts appear deeper in these images.

There are seven objects which were extracted in this process. The diagonal line which appears in the upper right quadrant does not seem to go anywhere. It makes us wonder if it is there just out of coincidence or for some other reason. The question arises, does everything have to mean something?

When you are looking at the intentions of the author, the question of meaning should always be near. The context of these images is useful in this regard. What do we see here? Three sheep, what looks like a rope ladder, a diagonal line, two figures, one identified as 'an upright, bipedal bighorn sheep' which identifies this image as representing as shaman that had entered the spirit world with his sheep spirit helper. (1) This image is seen in other places such as Petroglyph Canyon. (2) What the image at the bottom depicts is not known.

If we go back to the original extraction where we posterized the image to level 5, and we look at it closely, we see more detail.

Image # 1 bears a resemblance to image # 2. It could be a sketch of a shaman that was not filled in for some reason.

First, we cut out a 107px by 128px box over image #1.

Then flipped it horizontally. Next, we changed the 3rd input in 'levels' to the extreme. This exposed the image, making it red.

We cut out every thing around that image to make the background clear, then we superimposed this image over image #2. The result is interesting in that the top of each image looks similarto one another and that the basic outline is also similar.

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(1) "A Guide To Rock Art Sites", Whitley, p 135
(2) See Petroglyph Canyon, Petroglyph Wallls #2 and #3

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