Out of Place Petroglyphs

[TheInspector]

About 20 miles from my home in Arizona, there's a canyon filled with petroglyphs. The canyon may more or may not be on the Navajo reservation, but the land itself definitely belonged to the Anasazi. Amongst the many petroglyphs my friend and I stumbled upon on our visit, some banal, some bizarre (a few have been identified to me as Sasquatch or UFOs), there's one that always stick out in my mind:



To me that looks like for all the world to be a Viking ship. Keep in mind. I'm 500 miles away from any ocean and 2,500 miles from the ocean the Vikings came in on.

What is everybody's thoughts? Have I misidentified the drawing? What else might it be?

 

[rynner2]

To me that looks like for all the world to be a Viking ship. Keep in mind. I'm 500 miles away from any ocean and 2,500 miles from the ocean the Vikings came in on.

What is everybody's thoughts? Have I misidentified the drawing? What else might it be?

I'd like it to be a viking ship, but my first thought was....

...Dinosaur!!!

 

[Mythopoeika]

It could be a badly-drawn dragon.

 

[TheInspector]

I'd like it to be a viking ship, but my first thought was....

...Dinosaur!!!

That was my friend's first thought as well. There were definitely sauropods in North America, but that would require the people living there to find a near complete skeleton or get incredibly lucky with the design.

 

[TheInspector]

It could be a badly-drawn dragon.

That's a definite possibility. I'm not that familiar with Native American dragon myths, beyond knowing that they appear in mythology, but some quick research shows that most of them are of the sea serpent variety and even those are drawn with wings.

Another possibility is that it's fake. I wouldn't begin to know how to date drawings. But I will say that it wasn't the easiest thing to get to. If we hadn't been looking for them in particular, we wouldn't have hiked up there. Even then, it's behind some cover.

That said, the possibility can't be denied.

 

[Ermintruder]

A worry I have about such 'ancient' rock carvings is: what is there to say that some weren't done as recently eg late 1700s? Dinosaurs were being unearthed, and starting to be identified, in the 18th century.

A tombstone, cut by a stonemason's chisel, will look eroded and weathered after 100years.... suppose if that were to be a 250yr old stone-scratch doodle?

I would prefer it to be a 700AD impression of the last-ever North American dinosaur, part of a tiny remnant herd hidden in deep cleft for millennia.

 

[kamalktk]

About 20 miles from my home in Arizona, there's a canyon filled with petroglyphs. The canyon may more or may not be on the Navajo reservation, but the land itself definitely belonged to the Anasazi. Amongst the many petroglyphs my friend and I stumbled upon on our visit, some banal, some bizarre (a few have been identified to me as Sasquatch or UFOs), there's one that always stick out in my mind:



To me that looks like for all the world to be a Viking ship. Keep in mind. I'm 500 miles away from any ocean and 2,500 miles from the ocean the Vikings came in on.

What is everybody's thoughts? Have I misidentified the drawing? What else might it be?

Side view of a cooking pot on the fire? A local navajo cultural center or museum would be a likely bet to have someone who could identify it.

It does look like a dino or a longboat though.

 

[Coastaljames]

What else might it be?

Pretty much anything, or nothing.

Either way it's very cool thanks for sharing.

 

[Coal]

Either way it's very cool thanks for sharing.

^this^

 

[Vardoger]

Possibly a boat with oars.

 

[gerhard1]

It looks to me like some animal. Note the four (legs?) under it, and the head (?) to the right.