Archaeology, Native Americans, History, and Photography
Loy Canyon
Pictographs in Loy Canyon, near Sedona is Arizona, depict wildlife, humans, and hunting scenes. While the ancient art is fascinating, footprints show that a large lizard lived here millions of years ago.
Loy Canyon is located about 12 miles west of Sedona, Arizona in the heart of the Red Rock Wilderness. Not only is the geology beautiful but there is amazing archaeology here as well and even one delicious taste of paleontology. The trail begins at the mouth of a wide canyon and gradually traverses hills before dropping into a wash. Fences soon close in on the trail as it winds through the wash. You are travelling through private property here and many days there is an annoying dog which slips through the fence to bark at you.
Shortly after the private property fence line there is a hidden path which breaks off towards a side canyon. That side canyon is host to a wonderful pictograph site. Knowing where to leave the hidden path to bushwhack to the pictographs is even more obscure but once you find it the panels of rock art appear every few hundred feet. The pictographs begin in a small alcove with the ruins containing knee high stone walls. The pictographs begin with some of the oldest images known to man, handprints. Pictographs are drawn in black and white, and feature stick figure humans and animals in depictions of hunting scenes.
Most noteworthy are large serpents painted onto the rock, some six and eight feet long. Native Americans of the United States southwest and northern Mexico have traditions of serpents as guardian spirits of mountain springs. To kill a serpent spirit caused a mountain to dry up. It is believed this tradition may have migrated north from MesoAmerican myths about Quetzacoatl, the water serpent. The first US pioneers to settle in Oracle, Arizona reported that the local Apache were travelling deep into Peppersauce Cave to feed live chickens to an eight foot rattlesnake who lived there, claiming it was the mountain water spirit. The numerous large serpents drawn at Loy Canyon are often depicted with spiked tails — perhaps symbolic of rattlesnakes?
Rounding the corner from the alcove we stumble onto an amazing rock art panel. Beneath an overhand and slightly behind a boulder is a giant demon head, white outline drawn against a black background. The rock art panel above the demon features a bird rising upwards. The top of the panel has large serpents. Petroglyph interpretation is always a slippery slope but I suspect this panel may represent a complete map of an entire cosmology from demons of the underworld to serpents in heaven.
Most of the images located here are believed to date back to 1200-1400 AD but some images are believed to be much older. There are also much newer pictographs such as the riders on horseback drawn in black. The people who lived here would not have seen horses until after the arrival of the Spanish — the 16th century at the earliest. There is also much more recent graffiti. According to Forest Service regulations, the dividing line between graffiti and historical markings is at least 50 years. The name Purtyman is written on the rock in great big letters. The Purtymans were an early family of Sedona pioneers, and their names are inscribed upon the rock at this and several other gorgeous archaeological sites across the region, usually with dates in the 1890s or early 1900s. When the Purtymans arrived in Sedona, Oak Creek Canyon did not possess wild blackberries. Grandma Purtyman planted Himalayan berries which now thrive up and down the river.
Along the rock wall pictograph panels appear intermittingly. Each panel is unique and filled with a wide variety of pictures; kachina dancers, sun shields, anthromorphs and animals. The pictographs end in a small alcove with a spectacular panel. The final pictograph panel features a large circle with a line running across the top and extending both ways for a couple feet. The images above and below the circle, animals and geometric designs reflect a sense of symmetry and balance. Portions of the interior circle have been painted with a turquoise pigment. I have photographed hundreds of pictograph sites across the southwest and this canyon has the only turquoise glyphs I have ever seen.
Returning to the main trail, we hike a short distance until we come to a large dead oak tree with all his arms sawed off beside the trail. Standing beside this large dead black tree and looking up the red rock, one spies an ancient eight room pueblo tucked into the cliff. The first time I saw the pueblo I was hiking out of Loy Canyon at sunset and the adobe pueblo glowed in the golden light. It was too late to hike to the pueblo I was forced to return on a later date to explore the pueblo. Located high up the cliff, the view was tremendous. The architecture is splendid, handmade rock walls fitting snuggly against curving cliffs. There is a deep chasm beside the pueblo, a place where sound echoes beneath the vast rock overhang. There are a few small structures across the chasm. This would have been a nice place to live, the views of the red rock sandstone and white limestone cliffs are breathtaking.
I brought my friend Oscar here on a beautiful sunshine day. Oscar recognized bear grass growing on the edge of the pueblo and showed me how in grade school he had learned how to make a basket, weaving together strands of grass. Sometime during the hike back to the car, the lid on one of my canteens loosened and leaked in my pack. My camera was not destroyed but my memory card was ruined and all of the photos from that hike were lost forever. Oscar kept bugging me to take him back to the ruins. When we finally returned, Oscar told me that my photos were ruined because I had not been humble and had not made any offerings. Oscar opened his backpack and revealed he had brought gifts, beer for the ghosts of the fathers, a pack of cigarettes for the spirits of the dead grandmothers, and Tootsie-pop for the lost children. Spirits properly appeased, we had a wonderful hike.
Loy Canyon has more treasures for those willing to climb another layer. The red rock mountains of Sedona are often layers, a mesa with a pinnacle, a series of flat areas which can be explored or climb up to the next plateau. Up one level from the pueblo is some paleontology. Clear and crisp on a flat nondescript rock covered with slick desert varnish are fossilized dinosaur footprints. Technically, it wasn’t a dinosaur but lizard footprints which date back approximately 220 million years. The lizard was big about 2 feet long, more counting the tail. The lizard would have been walking across this landscape when it was sand dunes on the edge of a giant inland sea. The footprints are each about the size of a quarter and there are fourteen of them. Some of them are indistinct but a few footprints are so crisp that you can see individual talons where they were squishing in the damp mud.
Traversing the same plateau, following the horseshoe bend in the mesa, you head towards a giant pine tree. When a friend was giving me directions to these ruins, he said to look for the giant pine tree, you can see it from far away. I did not notice the giant pine tree until I was standing inside the ruins. Then looking skyward, I thought to myself, “Wow that really is a giant pine tree.” The ruins are not much here, a few ankle high and knee high walls. What is impressive are the pictographs. There is another turquoise pictograph here, a few geometric designs, and the largest Kokopeli rock art I have ever seen. Drawn in white, the Kokopeli’s flute stretches for several feet. Kokopeli, the flute player, is an iconic rock art figure whose images are found from El Salvador to the Canadian shield. He is particularly popular in the American southwest. There are plenty of other treasures to be discovered in Loy Canyon but this is enough for one day
