EL MORRO, N.M. –Apetroglyph panel partly hidden behind a large piñon tree at El Morro National Monument offers visitors a glimpse into a much older chapter of the site’s history, according to the National Park Service.
The National Park Service said the panel contains numerous petroglyphs made by Ancestral Puebloans, including animal forms, human figures and abstract linear designs. Near the center of the panel are two large birdlike figures facing one another.
Although the panel is now partially obscured by vegetation, a historic illustration shows that the sandstone wall was once much more exposed.
An 1849 drawing by Richard H. Kern depicts the same section of rock and records many of the carvings that remain visible today. The illustration, held by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, shows a variety of handprints, animal figures, human forms and geometric designs across the rock face.
The National Park Service noted that the panel would have been more readily visible to passersby in the mid-19th century before trees grew up around the wall.
El Morro is best known for the inscriptions left by Spanish travelers and later American emigrants, but the monument also contains much older cultural markings created by Indigenous people who lived in and traveled through the area centuries earlier.
Park officials encourage visitors to take time to look closely at the sandstone walls, where many features can be easy to miss from the main trail.