Rock Art in Jordan's Eastern Desert
Dixie in her natural habitat: outdoors. Here in Southern Utah, 1993 When I was a little kid, Dixie (my mom) was into Native American (Indian) things. Actually, she was always interested in them. And because she was, and we spent a lot of time together, I became interested in Indian things too. We spent time discussing ancient native cultures, her (some would say wild) theories about them, and the more spiritual/mystical aspects often tied to the rich cultural heritage. She also liked “glyphs”, as she called them, and I soon became aware that these glyphs – rock art – were found in almost every culture around the world. Fast forward to my PhD work where, by luck really, I ended up studying rock art (though not in the traditional archeological sense) – and in the Desert Southwest US, no less. I learned there are four main types of rock art: petroglyphs (those carved or pecked into the rock), pictographs (paintings on rocks), intaglios (scraping away of a surface to reveal ligh...