Puebloan Rock Art Rides out the Ages

The Grand Canyon has a way of serving up irony on occasion. On a recent hike down the Bright Angel Trail I found myself discouraging a Japanese child from scrawling her name on a limestone wall beside the Bright Angel Trail (and her father from videotaping the mischief). Not one to chastise, I tried to change the negative energy by directing their attention to an insider’s secret overhead—scrawlings on a limestone wall beside the Bright Angel Trail.

The difference you ask (as did they)? Anywhere from eight hundred to three thousand years, as park archaeologist Ian Hough would quickly point out. That’s the approximate age of one of the more visually accessible rock art panels in the vicinity of Grand Canyon Village. Mallerys Grotto, an array of tiny animal figures painted by successive groups of Native Americans, can be viewed high above the Bright Angel Trail (under the “lip” of the South Rim) immediately upon emerging from the first tunnel heading downhill (approximately five hundred yards from the trailhead).

As with numerous other examples of paintings (pictographs) and chiselings (petroglyphs) throughout the canyon, the precise meaning of this display remains a mystery. Though the father and daughter were puzzled by my apparent mixed messaging, the three of us could agree on the magic of a Puebloan artist from the distant past whose handiwork continues to instill a sense of wonder in visitors from every corner of our planet.