THE WHITE SHIELD GALLERY (NATURAL BRIDGES)

On March 19, 2018, as I was in the process of searching for Ruin Rock in Natural Bridges National Monument, I stumbled across a rock art site that I decided to call “The White Shield Site”.  As I hiked upstream from Kachina Bridge, I spotted a small ruin up on a ledge to my right.  I climbed up to inspect the small ruin and scanned the whole area from the high vantage point with my binoculars.  Across the canyon I spotted some white pictographs, which were not visible from the canyon floor.  After exploring the area around the small ruin, I hiked down to the canyon floor and made my way up to the area across the canyon where I had spotted the white pictographs.  The main panel appeared to have seven horned anthropomorphs, five of which appeared to be holding a shield in their left hand.  Next to the anthropomorphs were two spirals, an atlatl, and a big horn sheep, all painted in white.  Closer inspection revealed some very old petroglyphs as well.  D-Stretch photos seem to indicate the white figures were painted on top of older petroglyphs and in the case of the large big horn sheep, was painted white after being a pecked image (petroglyphs).   To the left of the main panel with the white pictographs  were some very old petroglyphs and at least one area of the petroglyphs appeared to have some paint applied.  All in all a very interesting site.  Hope you enjoy my photographs, although the midday bright sun was not the best for photographing the panels.  To see my blog post about the trip that includes my visit to Natural Bridges and the White Shield site, look here.