Polly Schaafsma

Over the weekend, the kids and I went to Flagstaff to see a speaker at the Museum of Northern Arizona. Here's their website...

http://www.musnaz.org

The speaker was part of their Stories on Stone presentation, a petroglyph exhibit. It focuses on the Colorado Plateau, so there's none of the Hohokam glyphs that I'm accustomed to.
Back to the speaker. Dr Polly Schaafsma is basically the Stephen Hawking of the field of petroglyph study. Back in the 60's when petroglyphs were largely regarded as graffiti, she took note of them and developed the field of study they are today.
It was an interesting presentation. The only problem was the Q&A afterwards. Because the field of petroglyph study isn't that popular, the audience was made up of mainly glyph nerds and wanna-be archaeology types. They were happy to argue points that they thought were valid, and ponder the imponderable. Some of the questions were just unreasonable, and should have been posed to the people that actually made the glyphs. I thought to myself that they should all go home and pray over some crystals or something!

Somebody screwed with my Glyph Site!!

Somebody fucked with my glyph site!! Ok, maybe I should just relax, and take a deep breath. Behold the picture on the left, taken on November 6th of 2004. I think this pic may appear earlier in my blog. The whole mountain that these boulders rest on had been so heavily disturbed, so it's impossible to tell what direction these originally faced. In fact, the top portion of this boulder is missing. It probably has a bunch of cool glyphs on it, and it's probably a decoration in someone's back yard.




Now here's a pic of the same glyph site today (January 22nd, 2006). Somebody messed with it. I mean, it's not my glyph site. But it's the first glyph site I ever found, so naturally I feel a connection to it. Some jackass picked up a boulder and put it on top of the other boulder. Ok, I can't describe the scene well, but that's what pictures are for.

So, what amI gonna do? Well, I'm not gonna be the Glyph Nazi and call 911 or anything. But I will send these before-and-after pics to the city archaeologist in hopes that they can toss it in the huge 'in box' that they don't have the time or funds to address.

Montezuma's Castle

Since I'm still a little gun-shy about going to remote glyph sites (see previous post), I decided to see something touristy and well paved. Montezuma's Castle came to mind, so off I went.
This is very interesting, and falls within the 'amazing feats of neolithic construction' category. It's basically a fort built into a cliff face. As you stand there looking at it, you don't see any stairs, steps, or a path leading up to it. Maybe the same aliens that helped build the pyramids came over and helped the Sinagua with this little defensive position.
It's managed by the National Park Service, and it's only $3 to get in. Check it out...

http://www.nps.gov/moca/