Friday, November 1, 2013

Red Ochre Paintings

Just a half mile from the main Gila Cliff Dwellings, and across the Gila River from them, was a small dwelling up in a small canyon with lots of pictographs nearby.  Why this family was separated from the main Gila community one can only guess.  I like to think it was because they were artists and artists can be a bit eccentric;)

theses pictographs were on the rock face at the entrance of the canyon....

the shadows make them difficult to distinguish but there are hundreds


look at this amazing design....was he/she practicing to put this design on a pot??

this figure kinda looks like a frog facing down, note the two human figures in the upper left

this rock area was used as a work surface as you can see by the worn indentations all over it

detail

we saw gourds like this growing everywhere in the area

After checking out the pictographs we walked up the little canyon to the dwelling....




 This is the area where the cliff dwellings are located.  It was one crazy winding road to reach them!
For those of you who know me, I had to have Mike pull over so I could drive;)
 After leaving we stopped at the historic town of Los Pinos but it was late and we......
 just did a quick drive through.  Looked very interesting though!

 We did stop for a few minutes at a small museum where the owner was still using this old stove to heat the place.....love it!
 This huge copper mine was not far from Silver City, yes thats how far we traveled that day!


This mine is over a mile long and 1600 feet deep!!!!



2 comments:

  1. I wanted to do that little pictograph trail when we went to Gila but did not have time, glad I got to see it thru your eyes!

    We saw some music at the Buckhorn Saloon, neat bar, the food looked good. They did a really good job renovating the place with old character.

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