|
|
 |
| Home | Pictures/Discussion |
Pictures/Discussion
Gordon's Panel, also known as Shamans' Gallery, contains the oldest prehistoric evidence of man in the Grand Canyon and is quite possibly the most important rock art panel discovered on the North American continent.
The site was used by Indian shamans to try and communicate with the supernatural for thousands of years. Did they actually see what they painted? The images are multicolored, abstract, and life sized. Underlying these figures are earlier images. Some of the smaller figures in the caves, the oldest paintings, look like neanderthal man paintings. Other paintings look like deer with huge antlers, "space men" with antennas, and objects that look like space craft.
In the April 1989 issue of Arizona Highways magazine, the site was compared to Edgar Allan Poe's Nightmares. The magazine also claimed that if one disregards theories of lost tribes, spacemen, aliens from a different planet, or other supernational explanations, there is not much more to compare the site to.
The age of the site has been estimated only by comparing the styles to rock art in different areas of the world. It was estimated to be the oldest prehistoric evidence of man in the Grand Canyon by Polly Shasma, a rock art specialist who was one of the first to be taken to the site.
Despite the importance of and unusual nature of this site, very little research has been done. There have been no excavations near the site to help determine who the artists could have been or how they lived. The age of the site remains estimated, as most of the paintings were done with mineral pigments that cannot be carbon dated. However, it might be possible to test for organic dyes that could be carbon dated, such as Oregon Grape, a dye well known to indians that produces a yellow color.
Lastly, the site has not been protected properly by the Park Service and vandalism has started to occur. Partially this is because it is in such a remote location of the Grand Canyon and is thereby a difficult area to protect. But as a result of this, the Park Service has not advertised the site to the public either. Gordon's Panel has been kept a "secret" for a long time; it is time for this to change.
There are things that can be done to remedy the situation. Some ideas can be found on the Help Protect This Location page of this website. Ultimately, however, the more people who know about, appreciate, and want to study or visit the panel, the better. To visit Gordon's Panel yourself, download your map here.
|
|
|
|
|
