Washington State Park Petroglyphs (Washington County, Missouri)

I'm back in the St. Louis area for a few days to arrange and attend my grandfather's funeral. He was a good man and we were very close, but he lived a rich life of ninety-three years and since my grandmother passed a few years ago, I truly believe he has just been waiting for his time to come. While I will certainly miss him, I can't really feel sad because I know he is happier now.

While in the area, I wanted to take a short break from family matters to visit a site I had read about a few months ago. Washington State Park, which is about two hours southwest of my hometown, contains some very interesting Native American petroglyphs. These rock art panels are thought to have been created by artists from the same Mississippian culture that built the Cahokia complex around the first millennia CE. 

It's a short drive through the park and then a stroll out onto a board walk to visit the panels, which have been protected by a open awning structure. As they images were carved around a thousand years ago, I'm not sure the roof is all that necessary, but I can still appreciate the state wanting to protect these treasures.

The images themselves are quite unique in my experience. I've never seen petroglyphs quite like these. The are carved into horizontal slabs of limestone, which is prevalent in this area. The images are carved deep into the stone and instead of being made from a series of pecks, it's almost as if the negative image was simply removed from the stone like a puzzle piece. The most common image is that of a thunderbird, which appears many times on the large panels. In addition, there are arrows, squares, and turkey tracks. A very cool collage of unique images. While it was a bit of a drive to get here and I have important matters to attend to, I'm very glad I came down this way.