RonnieAdventure #0109 - Parawan Gap Petroglyphs, Iron County, Utah

Geologist tell us that about 15 million years ago a long, slender section of sedimentary rock sheared from the earth’s crust and was thrust upward, forming the Red Hills north of Cedar City, Utah. At the same time, a stream started flowing through a rock fracture and eventually eroded a gap in the rock slab, known today as “Parawan Gap.” Then, over a thousand years ago, the First Americans started chiseling geometric figures into the stone slabs. The main band of First Americans moved out of the area several hundred years ago and the meanings of the images was lost with time. 

In 1849 the Parley Pratt Expedition discovered the Parawan Gap site and wondered if the geometric figures chiseled in stone had a specific meaning, or if they were just “doodling.” One of the local First Americans that remained in the area explained to the men that “a person does not work for hours and days deeply inscribing figures in solid rock, just to doodle.”

At many petroglyph sites throughout the southwest, the images chiseled in stone are primarily of mountain sheep, lizards, snakes, bear claws, human figures, and random shapes. However, while the images at the Parawan Gap site do contain some animal figures, in general the figures tend to contain more repetitive elements, such as dots and lines.

Of particular interest is the large “V” shaped “Zipper Glyph,” which has been studied extensively and is still not fully understood; but it is know that the image was used as a map and an observational calendar. The angle between the “V” shaped lines fairly accurately represents the angular traverse of the sunsets as observed from the rock through Parawan Gap; and there are approximately 180 tick marks on the lines, which is the approximate number of days between solstices. (The tick marks on the lines also make the image look like a zipper; thus, the name “Zipper Glyph.”)

On the ground to the west, researchers have discovered an entire system of rock cairns that mark the solstice points (and other important observations) relative to the “Zipper Glyph.” Studies of the rock cairn system indicates that the First Americans divided the year into four seasons of about 90 days each. The seasons did not start on the equinoxes and solstices, but started at the cross quarter dates (mid-points between them); i.e., November was the first day of winter, February 5 was the first day of spring, May 8 was the start of summer, and fall started August 8. There are also rock cairns that apparently were used to compensate for a calendar year of slightly more than 360 days.

The rock containing the “Zipper Glyph” is also a map. The “V” is superimposed over a map that has been chiseled into the rock of the horizon to the west, so that users of the calendar could be certain of where they were at on the calendar by checking the position of the sunset relative to the map.

Explanations provided for the other marks on the "calendar" were beyond my attention span, but apparently the lines and the bulb at the bottom of the "V" were used for corrections when using lunar months. There are twelve and a third lunar months per year; thus, various correction lines were required so that the calendar could be used for both lunar and solar observations.