Nazca, Peru is famous for the lines and figures of both animals
and humans that dot its landscape. However, few people are aware
that the American Southwest is also home to a large number of
figures and shapes carved into the desert floor. These images
are known as geoglyphs or intaglios.
I traveled to Blythe, California to visit one of the better-known
sites where several intaglios can be seen. Blythe is located on
the border of California and Arizona. The intaglios are found
off of interstate 10, about 15 miles north of town on highway
95.
Geoglyphs and intaglios are created by scraping away the darker
rocks that make up the desert floor, thereby exposing the lighter
colored rocks and sand beneath. Despite their seemingly fragile
construction, under the right conditions, geoglyphs can last for
thousands of years.
Unlike petroglyphs or other Native American art found around
the country, the Blythe intaglios can only really be appreciated
from the air. Comparisons to the figures in Nazca, Peru immediately
spring to mind. Despite the similarities, there are some differences
between the geoglyphs found in the Southwest and those found at
Nazca.
For instance, at Nazca there are huge numbers of straight lines
seemingly running at random across the desert floor. It is these
lines that Erich Von Daniken likened to ancient landing strips
for extraterrestrials. To my knowledge, there are no such lines
found in the Southwest. Rather, the Blythe intaglios are made
up of representations of man, animals and some symbols.
While there have been volumes written about the shapes found
at Nazca, there has been comparatively little research done on
the intaglios of the Southwest. There are over 600 intaglios in
the American Southwest stretching into Mexico and there are likely
many more that have never been officially cataloged or discovered.
Many of these intaglios are located on private land or are otherwise
inaccessible. This is understandable, but it makes any serious
study of the intaglios virtually impossible because so few of
them can be seen. Furthermore, I know of no books or web sites
that have published a comprehensive inventory of the intaglios
that have been discovered to date.
After traveling north from Blythe, I found a small sign indicating
that I’d found the right spot. A short drive down a dirt
road led me to the first set of intaglios. The intaglios are surrounded
by fences that prevent people from walking over them and more
importantly, prevent cars from driving over them. Unfortunately,
this sort of abuse has occurred in the past.
The
first intaglio I came to was created in the image of a man. The
figure is aligned north-south with its head pointing towards the
south. The intaglio measures 102 feet from head to toe and 64.9
feet across its arms. This figure was originally surrounded by
a circular path, 131.2 feet in diameter. However, most of this
path has been destroyed and only a small section of it crossing
the knees of the figure remains. Tire tracks predating the installation
of the fence are visible beneath the left arm of the figure.
The
next intaglio is the most controversial of the bunch. The animal
depicted has been identified as a mountain lion or a horse. To
my eye, it does most resemble a horse with its long neck, long
pointed head, medium length tail and long legs.
The problem with it being a horse is that the Spanish were supposed
to have reintroduced horses to America in 1540. Prior to that
time, there lived the Pleistocene horses, but they supposedly
died out 10,000 years ago. If this intaglio does represent a horse,
and I believe it does, then we may be able to date these intaglios
as either being over 10,000 years old or only a few hundred years
old.
However, dating the intaglios is not so easy. In fact, no one
really knows how old they are. In the September 1952 issue of
National Geographic, in an article on the intaglios, Frank M.
Setzler attempts to date them. Based on the horse shaped intaglio
and the lack of patina found within the forms, Setzler calculated
an age of between 1540 (the time the Spanish reintroduced horses
to America) and the middle of the 19th century.
The patina that Setzler speaks of is also known as desert varnish.
It’s a reddish brown to black coating that forms on the
surface of exposed rocks after a long period of time. Setzler
noticed that the rocks inside of the intaglios didn’t appear
to have a patina on them. Therefore, he reasoned that the intaglios
couldn’t be much more than a few hundred years old.
However, Setzler was merely guessing at the amount of time it
takes patina to form, because at that time scientists just didn’t
know. Since then, research has shown that desert varnish actually
forms very slowly and can take up to 10,000 years for a heavy
patina to form.1 Now, Setzler noticed
virtually no patina on the etched surface of the intaglios, so
we can probably safely say that the intaglios are not 10,000 years
old. However, they could be several thousand years old.
This takes us back to the issue of when horses were actually
alive in North America. There is quite
a bit of evidence that seems to indicate that horses were
in fact still alive and well in North America before the Spanish
supposedly reintroduced them in 1540. This is one of the reasons
the Blythe intaglios are so interesting. If they are found to
be more than 500 years old, then they would lend credence to the
idea that there were horses in America before the Spanish supposedly
reintroduced them.
Within its fence, the horse is not alone. There is also a spiral
figure measuring 23 feet in length with a width of 8.8 feet. The
spiral is oriented northwest to southeast and some believe it
represents a coiled snake.
There
are supposed to be six intaglios available for viewing at Blythe,
but I only located one more: another human figure. This human
is also oriented north-south with its head pointing to the south.
It measures 105.6 feet from head to toe and 91.8 feet across the
arms. This intaglio was the best preserved of all the ones I had
seen, but it has still suffered over the past fifty years. When
originally discovered, the person depicted in this intaglio had
visible fingers and toes as well as multiple strands of hair.
Those details are virtually nonexistent now.
The intaglios that I didn’t get to see include another
horse, with a longer tail and another person believed to represent
a woman. While I know of no complete index of intaglios found
in the Southwest, there have been many other geoglyphs documented.
These include the Bouse
Fisherman, the Yuha
Geoglyphs and the Snake.
Setzler’s National Geographic article gives the locations
of many more intaglios including several that were spotted just
east of Blythe in Ripley, Arizona. The Ripley intaglios include
several images of humans as well as various shapes. One of the
shapes takes the form of a Maltese cross. This could be coincidence
or it could be evidence of a European influence on the local art
style. Unfortunately the location of the Ripley intaglios is currently
restricted.
The
dirt road continued towards the hills to the west. I drove for
several more miles, jumping out to explore occasionally. I found
some interesting rocks and several examples of petrified wood,
such as the sample shown to the left. As I got closer to the mountains
I noticed a low mesa to my left. I parked the car and climbed
to the top, hoping that I might see some more intaglios, but I
had no such luck.
As I stood atop the mesa enjoying the fantastic view off to the
east, I had to wonder why anyone would carve the intaglios where
they did. They put them just far enough away from the mountains
and the mesas that you can’t really see them from either
location. In fact, there is no place anywhere near the intaglios
where you can look down upon them and really appreciate them.
To properly view the Blythe intaglios requires an aerial view,
which of course requires some means of flight.
Did the people who created the Blythe Intaglios have some means
of flight? This seems unlikely, but not entirely out of the question.
In 1975 a simple balloon was created out of materials that were
available to the Nascans.2 This hot
air balloon actually flew for twenty minutes, thereby proving
that flight by primitive people is at least within the realm of
possibility.
Maybe the intaglios weren’t meant to be fully comprehended
by man. Perhaps they were created so that only the native’s
gods could truly appreciate them. Unfortunately we will probably
never know the real reason for the creation of the Blythe intaglios.
