In this study a possibly unique petroglyph will be discussed. It was recorded by my wife Elles and me at the Sand Dune site in the San Juan drainage of southern Utah in 2005. Close inspection revealed that it most likely concerns a Basketmaker Anasazi image of a (deceased?) female. Rock art images unambiguously showing female sex are rare in the area, and this example is even more special as the figure features two large, circular areas depicting breasts, that, moreover, have intentionally been manufactured in the rarely used Bas Relief technique.

By Maarten van Hoek

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The Female Exposing Breasts

Sand Dune Petroglyph Site, Utah

 

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Maarten van Hoek

  

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Introduction

Utah is one of the many areas in North America with an enormous amount of rock art sites and rock art images. All sorts of images have been painted as pictographs onto the rock surfaces in Utah, or have been carved out as petroglyphs. Discussing Utah rock art, Kenneth Castleton describes and illustrates numerous rock art images that he published in two extensive and informative volumes (1984, 1987). Yet,  no doubt many more sites have since then been added to the long list of rock art sites in (not only) Utah. One of the sites that Castleton describes is Bluff-2, called the Sand Dune site in this study (see Note 1). Unfortunately this extensive site (Figures 1 and 2) was only covered by him by one paragraph and one illustration (1987: 209; Fig. 7.20). However, the rock art at the Sand Dune site extends almost the whole length of a 500 meters long, impressive vertical cliff-face, which faces SW. The complex is divided in at least ten decorated panels (see Note 1), with an estimated average height of 60 m.

Figure 1. The Sand Dune site near Bluff, Utah, looking north. The yellow dots indicate the estimated location of the Female Exposing Breasts. Photographs © by Maarten van Hoek.   Klick to enlarge.

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The Location of the Sand Dune Site

The site is found in the extreme south of Utah, in a rather dry, desert-like landscape with only little vegetation (grasses and low bushes). The rapid San Juan River – which is invisible from the site – flows to the west and is found about 2.3 km to the south of Panel 1 (see Note 1 at the end of this paper) at the Sand Dune site, (the base of which is estimated by me to be at 1400 m O.D.). South-facing Panel 1 (Figure 1) at the east end of the Sand Dune site (the most profusely decorated panel of the site) is located about 2.8 km west of the prominent Twin-Tower rock formation (which looks like a kissing couple when observed from one angle) just to the north of the village of Bluff.

The arbitrary numbering of the panels in this study is based only on our observations in the field, while surveying the site in the morning of July 2005 (unfortunately experiencing unfavourable light for photography at most panels [therefore, all photos in this study have been digitally enhanced by me]). The positions of the three most important panels (1, 4 and 7) are only roughly indicated in Figure 2 (we never used anything like GPS), see also Note 1 at the end of this paper.

Figure 2. The location of the Sand Dune site in southern Utah. The numbers very approximately indicate the position of the three major panels mentioned in the text. The site is also very approximately marked by a yellow dot in the inset-map of North America. Maps © by Maarten van Hoek, based on Google Earth and (inset) on the map © by OpenStreetMap – Contributors.

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The Imagery of the Sand Dune Site

Among the numerous petroglyphs at the Sand Dune site are groups of small cupules (some in straight, horizontal lines), large and deep anthropic holes (called “Atypical Cupules” by me) and oblong polissoir (both lengthily discussed by me; Van Hoek 2007; 2010), abstract motifs and symbolic designs (like the “Lobed Circle” motif [examples visible in Figures 4 and 6]; motifs which may – in my opinion – symbolise a “Trophy” Head [see Van Hoek 2023: 25 – 30; Figs 19 – 22 for a full explanation]), phytomorphic designs (see Figures 4 and 6), zoomorphic images (also involving a few animal tracks; even including two rare rabbit-tracks) and many anthropomorphic figures (including isolated human hand- and foot prints). One specific anthropomorphic figure – the Female Exposing Breasts – is the subject of this study.

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Anthropomorphic Figures at the Sand Dune Site

There is indeed a large variety of anthropomorphic figures, comprising some simple match-stick figures, several fully pecked examples showing different sizes and attitudes, large outlined or fully pecked personages and – in a few cases – humans engaged in certain (fertility-related) activities, like the two rows of “Flute-Players” focussing on a plant-symbol (see Figure 4). Most anthropomorphs have been fully frontally depicted, like a small “Saluting Figure” on SW-facing Panel 4, but several are shown in profile, like the “Flute-Players” (for both icons see Figure 4). There is a second “Saluting Figure” on west-facing Panel 7 (for many more examples see Van Hoek 2018). Some anthropomorphic images at the site (and at other sites nearby) are unfinished (or perhaps intentionally [?] incomplete; see Van Hoek 2019 for a discussion dealing with possibly intentionally incomplete figures in [rock] art), while several petroglyphs are superimposed upon each other, often further disturbing the already existing chaos of hard to separate and hard to read, often deeply patinated and hardly visible images.

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The San Juan Anthropomorphic Style

Most of the images at the Sand Dune site belong to the Basketmaker Anasazi Period (Castleton 1987: 209). Especially the anthropomorphs with drooping arms and legs (symbolising death?) are said to belong to the San Juan Anthropomorphic Style, which is ascribed to the Basketmaker II Period. Also the Sand Dune anthropomorphs mainly belong to the San Juan Anthropomorphic Style, and are similar to the often impressively large examples at – for instance – Sand Island and especially (mouth of) Butler Wash (two well-known rock art sites on the nearby San Juan River) and at Cedar Point (a rock art site much further west). However, there is even older rock art in the San Juan area. The small anthropomorph at Butler Wash (Figure 3: #3) is one of the few images at this site that belongs to the Glen Canyon Linear Style (roughly dating from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 900), which predates the San Juan Anthropomorphic Style imagery.

Figure 3. Petroglyphs at (mouth of) Butler Wash, Utah. Anthropomorphs are numbered. Photograph and drawing © by Maarten van Hoek.

What is also characteristic for many (large and small) anthropomorphic figures of the San Juan Anthropomorphic Style, is that they often have (single line) straight , slightly curved or sharply flexed, drooping arms with (especially in the large, outlined examples) often large, frontally depicted drooping hands, as well as straight (single line), drooping legs with often large frontally depicted drooping feet; frequently showing splayed digits (while the palms or backs are regularly [intentionally?] abraded). In most cases the bodies are outlined, while the (mostly face-less) heads may be outlined or fully pecked. At least one fully pecked figure (on Panel 3D of the Sand Dune site) has its arms and large hands raised as if lifting the Sun-Symbol above the figure, while its legs and large feet are drooping. All those anthropomorphic images are typical for the rock art in southern Utah and northern Arizona, especially at the (mouth of) Butler Wash site, an extensive and important rock art site further west along the San Juan River.

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Sex and Gender at the Sand Dune Site

Most anthropomorphic figures at the Sand Dune site are sexless, but some are definitely male, clearly showing male genitalia (like in the group of nine “Flute-Players” in a row on Panel 4 [Figure 4]; not ten as is stated by Manning 1992: 171; Fig. 21), or – when sexless – having an unambiguously male context, like the two sexless “Sitting-Twin-Flute-Players” high-up on Panel 7, and the male archer on Panel 1 (A in Figure 10). Hunting and playing a wind-instrument are activities often supposed to be restricted to the male members of the group. Yet, it is often notoriously difficult to establish the sex of anthropomorphic images. In most cases the male or female genitalia may provide a clue. However, there are still several problems.

Figure 4. Part of Panel 4 at the Sand Dune site, Utah. Photograph and drawing © by Maarten van Hoek; the drawing based on the illustration by Dennis Slifer (2000a: Fig. 117).

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The Problems of Interpreting Human Genitalia

In view of this study it is necessary to be more specific about the way genitalia are shown in San Juan Anthropomorphic Style figures. I will explain the issue by discussing a drawing of a petroglyph at nearby Butler Wash published by Dennis Slifer, who tentatively suggests that this anthropomorphic figure depicts a pregnant female (Slifer 2000a: Fig. 48e; see Schaafsma 1980: Fig. 77 for a slightly different drawing). However the smaller, obviously male anthropomorph (see Figure 3 – #5)  inside the larger figure (see Figure 3 – #4) most likely is not an unborn child, but just an earlier and smaller anthropomorphic petroglyph, having its small, fully pecked head superimposed by the deeply executed arc-shaped collar worn by the larger figure.

More importantly, Slifer draws the genitalia of the larger figure as three small, parallel appendages from the groin area (the central one slightly longer), and in my opinion such an arrangement – often seen in anthropomorphic figures at Butler Wash – indicates male genitalia (see the inset in Figure 3). Female genitalia of the labia-type (thus ignoring frontally depicted vulvae) are usually depicted by two short, parallel running lines from the groin area. Moreover, in the photo that I made, the larger figure only faintly shows genitalia. However, it most likely is still a male figure, especially as the other figures on this part of the panel (see Figure 3) are sexless or male, or have unrecognisable genitalia because of other disturbing petroglyphs, natural irregularities and damages. An unmistakably female figure cannot be distinguished in Figure 3 (nor elsewhere at Butler Wash). However, across the San Juan River – on the south bank – is the Desecration Panel (for location see Van Hoek 2023: Fig. 9) where one fully pecked anthropomorphic figure seems to have a vulva executed in the rarely used Bas Relief technique.

Finally, the suggestion by Slifer that Anthropomorph #4 is pregnant of anthropomorph #5 is, apart from the possibility that #5 has been superimposed by #4, made dubious by the fact that a few anthropomorphic images at both the Sand Dune site and at Butler Wash have smaller (Figure 5C), yet also dissimilar biomorphs (Figure 5A) inside their body (in one case – at Butler Wash – even a small animal; Figure 5B). Such inner biomorphs may therefore also have been superimposed by the larger figures (without necessarily superimposing the inner biomorph itself, but “framing” the smaller image; see Figure 5A). Alternatively, the smaller biomorphs were executed at a later stage at that point, simply because there was space, like the situation of a possibly unfinished, large and outlined San Juan Anthropomorphic Style figure (also on Panel 1 at the Sand Dune site) that has a completely different, very small match-stick anthropomorph inside the otherwise sexless and unfinished (?) body (Figure 5A). Contradicting my own suggestion however, this small figure may also have been “superimposed” (“framed”).

Figure 5. A: Large anthropomorph “framing” a smaller one on Panel 1 of the Sand Dune site, Utah. B: Large anthropomorph “framing” a small mammal at (mouth of) Butler Wash, Utah. C: Large anthropomorph “framing” a smaller anthropomorph (and other petroglyphs) at (mouth of) Butler Wash, Utah. Photographs © by Maarten van Hoek.

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The Lobed Circles as Breasts?

Female anthropomorphic rock art images may also be recognised by their breasts. However, rock art images of females only identifiable by breasts are exceptional or – at least in many cases – ambiguous. Ambiguity is for instance demonstrated with the following case. There are large outlined San Juan Anthropomorphic Style figures that have two Lobed-Circles on the chest in such a way that they resemble breasts, although they are “illogically” attached  to the shoulders with a short pecked band (the in most cases downward pointing “Lobe”).

Steven James Manning, who offers an enormous quantity of most interesting data (illustrations and information) about the Lobed Circle (1992), illustrates three examples of the San Juan Anthropomorphic Style (one arm-less; another leg-less), each with two Lobed Circles on the chest (indeed deceptively looking much like female breasts). These petroglyphs have also been recorded by us high-up on Panel 6 of the Sand Dune site (Figure 6A). However, we recorded at least four examples on Panel 6, and – importantly – all four figures are sexless (Figures 6A and B and 7), and thus they all four could represent males or females.

Figure 6. A: Large part of Panel 6 at the Sand Dune site, Utah. Photograph and drawing © by Maarten van Hoek. B: Drawing of the same panel, based on the slightly different illustration by Steven Manning (1992: Fig 20).

Although Manning tentatively yet briefly compares such pairs of Lobed Circles with female breasts, he does not state in his paper that they in fact represent or symbolise breasts (Manning 1992: 180 – 181). Importantly, Manning mentions that objects shaped like the Lobed Circle have been excavated in the NE of Arizona (the area just south of the San Juan River) and that these physical objects may have been used as pendants (Manning 1992: 190). Therefore, rock art motifs shaped like the Lobed Circle may well represent ornamentation, not necessarily just in female figures, as they also appear in sexless (Figures 6 and 7) and male images. The same idea applies to several Fremont petroglyphs, where – in one case – (two of the?) three circles are said by Warner to represent breasts (2002: Fig. 4 – bottom right corner). Again, those circles could well depict a type of collar-ornamentation (often seen in Fremont anthropomorphic rock art figures).

Figure 7. Detail of the fourth example of an anthropomorph “wearing” two Lobed Circles, both giving the impression of female breasts (on Panel 6 at the Sand Dune site, Utah). See Figure 6 – #4 for location. Photograph © by Maarten van Hoek.

Notwithstanding my reservations, Jesse Warner provides a few more convincing examples where simple circles or dots may indicate the breasts of female figures (Warner 2002: Fig. 4). The problem is that those elements are often so small that they could easily have been intended to also depict female nipples or even male nipples.

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Nipples or Breasts?

Indeed, dots and small circles could easily indicate female as well as  male nipples. There often is an element of doubt, and then other indications may provide a clue whether we are dealing with male or female figures. An illustrative example is the anthropomorphic petroglyph recorded by Ana Nieves on a boulder (Roca 1) at Site X03 of the Nasca Valley rock art complex in coastal southern Peru (Figure 8-1; Element A). Nieves very tentatively describes the joined elements on the thorax of Petroglyph A as “two circular forms carved where breasts would be located” (Nieves 2007: 281; Fig. A-34), while earlier in her thesis she seems to be certain that these features indeed represent female breasts (2007: 83). And she may well be correct in her claim.

In this respect it is important that Nieves also remarks that the figure has a bifurcated headdress. And especially that property could be – in the ancient Paracas-Nasca Cultures – a further indication of female gender. My suggestion seems to be confirmed by some geoglyphs (not a form of rock art, though) recorded in the Palpa area, which is located only a “short” distance north of Site X03. At least two Palpa geoglyphs show dots that are suggestive of nipples, and even of female breasts (Figure 8-3 and 4). Importantly, both geoglyphs have bifurcated hair or headdress, but one (Figure 8-3) also clearly shows female genitalia in the form of the two projecting labia. This may imply that most (if not all?) (rock) art figures with bifurcated hair in the Nasca-Palpa area could be female, and, moreover, that such dots may then well represent or symbolise breasts.

Figure 8: 1). Petroglyphs on Roca 1 at Site X03 of the Nasca Valley rock art complex. Photograph (from the private collection of Ana Nieves) and drawing by Ana Nieves (2007: Fig. A-34). 2). Geoglyph 5 in Panel 2 at Altos de Ariquilda Norte – Chile. Drawing by Maarten van Hoek, based on Briones & Chacama (1987: Lámina 8). 3). Geoglyph at site PAP-730, Palpa – Peru. Drawing by Maarten van Hoek, based on Reindel & Isla 2005: Abb 20. 4). Geoglyph at site PAP-715, Palpa – Peru. Drawing by Maarten van Hoek. 5). A painted anthropomorph on slab S/N-4 from Viraco – Peru. Drawing by Maarten van Hoek, based on an illustration by Renata Faron-Bartels (2011: 531).

Much further south – in northern Chile – at an enormous geoglyph complex located on the high pampa of Altos de Ariquilda Norte (just west of the better known petroglyph site of Ariquilda, which is located in a canyon) is an anthropomorphic figure with three circular areas of accumulated stones (Figure 8-2). Two areas seem to represent the breasts, while a single one near the groin area may symbolise the vulva.

Another rock art figure – painted on a small slab that was found near Viraco just south of Coropuna, the highest volcano in Peru – clearly shows a vulva (Figure 8-5), while the figure also has two projecting appendages below the armpits that most likely are breasts (more info about more similar Viraco-figures in Van Hoek 2012). This Viraco figure undoubtedly depicts a female with exposed breasts.

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The Female Exposing Breasts

Much in rock art discussions is about interpretation. Illustrative in this respect are the two anthropomorphic figures painted on a rock wall at Cedar Mesa (Figure 9), a rock art site west of the Sand Dune site. According to Sally Cole they belong to the San Juan Basketmaker Style and she moreover suggests that the “figures decorated with dots may represent females with emphasized breasts” (1990: Fig. 41). However, a human has only two breasts, but there are four un-dotted, moreover non-circular areas (two upper rectangular and two bag-like shapes [the latter two each with a single dot; interpreted as a nipple?]) visible on the upper thorax of each figure. The (in my opinion too long?) purported breasts are moreover positioned rather low on the thorax. Thus it is rather doubtful (for me) whether those bag-like shapes indeed depict breasts. What they could represent instead is unknown to me, but my suggestion would be that they represent eyes (with a pupil). However, only the prehistoric manufacturer knew for sure.

Figure 9. The two pictographs from Cedar Mesa, Utah, depicting sexless and headless figures, yet said to be females (without female genitalia, however) and said to show human breasts (all other pictographs on this panel have been omitted by me). Drawing © by Maarten van Hoek, based on a photograph published by Christine Oravec (2014: Fig. 35; the photograph made by Doak Heyser). My drawing is possibly incorrect.

However, regarding the authenticity of the breasts of the Female Exposing Breasts at the Sand Dune site in Utah there is – in my mind – no doubt at all. This petroglyph – possibly unique for the San Juan area –  is found rather high up on the south-facing Panel 1 (yellow frame in Figure 10; yellow dots in Figure 2), which is covered with a chaos of often superimposed petroglyphs. The Female Exposing Breasts is estimated by me to be 65 cm tall. Yet the image is more or less easily recognisable because the upper part projects a short distance above the major zone with often closely packed and superimposed petroglyphs.

Figure 10. The position of the Female Exposing Breasts. Photograph © by Maarten van Hoek.

The Female Exposing Breasts (Figure 11A and 12) has a fully pecked, small, round, faceless head (which is common in San Juan Anthropomorphic Style figures) and thin, curved arms ending in large (possibly [intentionally?] obliterated) drooping hands that only vaguely show splayed digits. The fully pecked body is rectangular, but it has – immediately above the shoulders – a small trapezoidal area, which looks like the smaller body of a San Juan Anthropomorphic Style figure. The legs are thin and straight and end in large (possibly [intentionally?] obliterated) drooping feet, again only vaguely showing splayed digits. It is unknown to me what the thin zigzag line, which emerges from the groin area, signifies. It may be part of the female figure (an emission?), or it may be the remaining, still visible part of a petroglyph superimposed by the pecked body of the Female Exposing Breasts.

What is – as far as I know – unique about the Female Exposing Breasts (for at least the Sand Dune site [and perhaps for the whole San Juan Anthropomorphic Style area]) is that she is indeed exposing breasts that clearly and intentionally have been  created by leaving two large round areas of the natural rock surface untouched. Those un-pecked areas really stand out, even nowadays being deeply patinated, and this will definitely have been even more the case when the Female Exposing Breasts had been freshly made. The then un-patinated petroglyph will have looked more like the image in Figure 11B; the freshly made image contrasting sharply with the deeply patinated natural rock surface; thus “accentuating” the breasts even more. Therefore, in my opinion the breasts of the Female Exposing Breasts have intentionally been created to depict a female.

The Female Exposing Breasts at the Sand Dune Site is unique because it combines frontally exposed breasts executed in the rarely used Bas Relief technique. But still the petroglyph is not the only rock art image in the San Juan River area of a female showing breasts. At the nearby rock art site of Sand Island is an outlined petroglyph of a legless anthropomorphic figure (Figure 11C) featuring two roughly circular, outlined elements at such a position that it is almost certain that they represent breasts of a female figure (or perhaps pendants still?).

Figure 11. A and B: The Female Exposing Bas Relief Breasts at the Sand Dune Site near Bluff, Utah. Photograph and drawing © by Maarten van Hoek. C: Petroglyph of a female showing outlined breasts at Sand Island petroglyph site. Drawing © by Maarten van Hoek, based on a photograph posted online by Mrs. and Mr. Hester. My drawings are possibly incorrect.

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Discussion

This study demonstrates that in the rock art of SW Northern America figures of females unambiguously showing breasts are rather rare. Dennes Slifer illustrates a number of often very convincing examples (2000a: Figs 24a; 38; 44d, e and l; 50c and d; and 58k [an example – regarding the breasts – that is more or less comparable with the Female Exposing Breasts]), and most likely there are some more, but I am sure not many. But Castleton nor Slifer did illustrate or discuss the example on Panel 1 at the Sand Dune site. Therefore, I do not have any other record of the Female Exposing Breasts besides my own photographic recording in 2005. Based on my observations the Female Exposing Breasts clearly is a female (even when lacking genitalia; the zigzag line cannot be interpreted by me as a phallus) by clearly showing two large circular areas depicting the breasts at the anatomically correct position, consisting of the natural surface that has intentionally and carefully been left untouched. Moreover, in my opinion those untouched areas are too large to depict or symbolise just nipples.

Finally, the technique of incorporating parts of the natural rock surface as elements of a petroglyph is also very rarely used. This technique – called Bas Relief – is very rare in Utah rock art, but is for instance found at Cub Creek, Uintah Basin, NE Utah, where a Basketmaker-style fully pecked rock art figure shows a bear in Bas Relief. However, the best example concerns one of the anthropomorphic figures (#3) at the Three (?) Kings Panel at McConkie Ranch near Vernal, also in the Uintah Basin (Van Hoek 2023: Fig. 39). Therefore, the fact that an anthropomorphic petroglyph at the Sand Dune site in Utah depicts a female, because she clearly exposes her breasts, moreover in the rarely used Bas Relief technique, makes it a very special rock art image, especially in contrast with the relatively “many” rock art images of sexless anthropomorphs and figures featuring male sex and/or gender in the San Juan area.

Figure 12. Close-up of the Female Exposing Breasts. Photograph © by Maarten van Hoek.

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Note 1: About Panel Numbering and Site Names

Panels recorded by my wife and me at the Sand Dune site in 2005 have arbitrarily been assigned a number (1 to 10) by me, from east (Panel 1) to extreme west (Panel 7; Panels 8, 9 and 10 are found between Panel 4 and 7), but of course my numbering is subjective. Other researchers may have used a different labelling (see also my video about the Sand Dune site on YouTube).

Rock art sites are often known by different names. In this study I prefer to refer to the site featuring the Female Exposing Breasts as the Sand Dune site, because I used that name in my 2007 publication. Inconsistently I used the name “Bluff Site” in another paper (Van Hoek 2010). The site is locally known as the Sand Dune site (pers. comm. Duke Hayduk, Bluff – 2005), because the site directly overlooks a large sand dune. Thus the local name proves to be appropriate. Moreover, also Carol Patterson labels the site “Sand Dune” (2018: Fig. 34). There are however a few more names for the site. Kenneth Castleton calls the site Bluff-2, which is not the same as Bluff-2 mentioned by Dennis Slifer (2000b: 66), a site which is found to the east of the village of Bluff. Finally, Christine Oravec (2014: 52; Fig. 41) calls the Sand Dune site “Tank Mesa”. It is uncertain however, whether Oravec is correct in this matter, because she also makes a mistake regarding her Fig. 27, said by her to be at Butler Wash, but in fact involving a petroglyph on Panel 1 of the Sand Dune site. The pictograph site (Figure 9) – called Grand Gulch by Oravec (2014: Fig. 35) – is named Cedar Mesa by Cole (1990: Fig. 41); both areas separated by the Colorado River (according to a map published by Oravec 2014: Fig. 1).

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Acknowledgements

I am obliged to Dr. Ana Nieves for her permission to use and publish her material from her Nasca Valley rock art surveys in southern Peru (in this paper the photo and upper drawing in Figure 8). We are also grateful to Duke Hayduk from Bluff for assistance at the Sand Dune site, and to Vaughn Hadenfelt – also from Bluff – firstly for informing us about the Sand Dune site and secondly for offering us a complimentary shuttle-service to and from the site. As always, I am indebted to Dennis Slifer for his generous permission to use his published material (in this paper the drawing in Figure 4). Last, but certainly not least, I thank my wife Elles who assisted me during our surveys at the Sand Dune Site, Sand Island, Butler Wash and River House Ruin (and many other sites in Utah and elsewhere worldwide), while she continues to support me at home.

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References

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Faron-Bartels, R. 2011. Piedras votivas de Pampacolca. Nuevos datos sobre las lajas pintadas del sur del Perú. Anexo. Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie am Fachbereich Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften der Freien Universität Berlin. Berlin.

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Van Hoek, M. 2012. Rumimantam Llaqllasaq Wirpuykita: The ‘Cycle of Life’ in the Rock Art of the Desert Andes. Oisterwijk, The Netherlands. Book available as PDF-101 at DropBox.

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