Another great surprise, our third major site of the day. After Paxson Shearing Corral, Round Tank, and
The Great Stone Face, we now wanted to find Pahvant Valley or Devil’s Kitchen to finish
the day.
We were on a circuitous route to Devil’s Kitchen and began
to wonder if we would ever find the site.
Finally we passed a series of vertical cliffs (no Rock Art on these
cliffs that we could find), but we suspected that we were close to the Pahvant
Valley site. In another mile or two, we
found a parking area and a fence apparently installed by the BLM. The three of us passed through the turnstyle
and hiked up the hill where we found a very nice petroglyph site. The hillside, particularly the top layer of
rocks and rock cliffs had enough petroglyphs so that we felt very comfortable
calling it a day after we reviewed this site. But if you go, don’t forget to
visit the lower levels of rocks also.
We did not observe any man made damage. There appears to be a lot of foot traffic to
the site, but I will leave it to the reader to determine if they believe that considerable
traffic inhibits damage, or if they feel the site should be rarely visited and
kept secret (even though a lot of rarely visited sites suffer damage because
scoundrels don’t feel they will be caught or interrupted). This preservation debate will continue to
eternity.
The Devil’s Kitchen images are probably a mixture of Archaic and Fremont drawings, but
that is the opinion of an amateur, and you might judge the origin of the images
differently.
Besides the many Archaic images, there are a couple of
very interesting anthropomorphs that are probably infrequently visited and do
not photograph well because of the material surface they are on, and the aging
over time (wind, sun, probable animal rubbing, etc).
We produced an ebook on the site since we enjoyed the
visit and felt that others might enjoy the experience also.
The Ebook is designed to provide information to:
A researcher,
photographer, artist, or writer who wants to preview the site before a planned
visitation to examine the Rock Art to be seen and determine that the site fits
the Research Plan and Objectives.
A student of either Archaeology or Anthropology who has specific interest
in Rock Art.
Interested advocates who want to review the book prior to visitation to make
sure the Rock Art at the site will be interesting to them.
If time is of essence, as on a vacation or a weekend, the more interesting
sites can be visited, saving the other sites until later when more time might
be available.
The Rock Art advocate whose objective is to “see all the sites” can use the
Ebook to allocate their time to the most interesting sites and to the most
interesting areas of a particular site.
And finally, the visitor who does not photograph or who visited with a
malfunctioning camera, can obtain a permanent record of the site for their use.
From my viewpoint, the Ebook serves as a personal recording (digital photo) of
the site. This recording will likely outlast me and serves as a forum to
discuss the site attributes with researchers, scholars, and interested Rock Art
advocates who desire more information.
