Hundreds Of Ancient Images Led Me To An Incredible Discovery

oh wow right here big panel somebody stood right here right where i'm standing and put this all in here oh wow okay how cool is that what do you guys think a snake gotta be right those are terrifying today i'm exploring the canyons of the book cliffs one of the longest continuous escarpments in the world steep desert cliffs formed from layers of sediment left behind by an ancient body of water called the western interior seaway ironically enough for a place called the book cliffs hidden deep here are stories left behind by native american cultures that used to once call this land home today i'm heading deep into these canyons to see if i can find and experience these stories for myself and i'm bringing you with me for the journey good morning aaron here from lost varnish today we are in what they call the book cliffs it stretches for 250 miles from parts of central utah into colorado it's a pretty hot day today we're pretty much out here in the dead middle of summer it's going to be in the high 90s i've heard of possible rock art out here in these varnish boulders we're going to take a look and see what we can find thanks for everyone for being here with me again as always make sure to like and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss any of the ventures ahead it's a beautiful day though there's a slight breeze partly cloudy looks like there's some sort of a horse here i don't think it's ancient oh those are really big i'm gonna do a quick check for uh snakes before i hop into this shady area oh there's more over here to me this panel almost looks like it could be a birthing scene it's not uncommon to see anthropomorphic figures appearing to emerge from one another often interpreted as imagery connected to birth and the creation of life i wonder who put these here they obviously have trapezoid like bodies so usually that's a dead giveaway that they're fremont but could be uh ute not sure oh whoa some sort of huge bird right here a really big like circular anthros with a big fee again this looks like some sort of an elk this panel just keeps going and going back here i'm gonna go around this rock right here this guy's got a really long neck it looks like there's some glyphs from early 1920s right here 1929 1920 there's a really small faded glyphs right here too you can see there's glyphs all the way down here all over the place oh wow my big anthro right here with its arms out pretty big bighorn sheep up here too i'm gonna set my bag down so nothing touches any of this okay now that i'm a little slimmer i can get back here without touching anything this one's almost barrier canyon style right here there's bighorn sheep just hiding all throughout this panel just everywhere these look like little handprints running into panels this size is usually the result of several generations adding their art layer after layer over time and these ones this one's really cool it looks really old appeared to be the oldest let me see one right next to it that's a pretty cool way to start the day let's keep going it's a really big boulder field right here go ahead and scramble this all and see what we end up finding it's a warm one today i kind of like it it's a little bit of heat never really bothered me the name book cliffs dates all the way back to the gunnison expedition of 1853 when the expedition's topographer produced a map labeling them the book mountains inspired by their resemblance to pages of books lined across a shelf years later john wesley powell helped establish the name we know them as today i can see some pecking oh wow bighorn sheep right here up here there's designs down here too some sort of pecking it almost looks like gray basin abstract almost but these lines all over the place we're not in a great basement at all oh wow let's keep going something right there some pretty wild erosion the holes oh wow how cool is that cannonball there's one tucked way back in there what do you guys think a snake it's got to be right this landscape is just incredible there's these big dunes and they have this like almost like this purple like sand in them it's gonna be a lot of sweating today it's gonna be pretty warm this canyon goes on for a while there's a lot of different canyons all throughout the book cliffs considering it's 250 miles long i've heard of some pretty interesting pictographs in this area and i really want to find them something about pictographs that i just find are amazing i have a pretty good idea of where to look but uh we'll see how it goes as hot and as harsh as it is it's really pretty out here it's peaceful it's quiet we saw a pronghorn sheep on the way in it stops right here i mean it keeps going but i see a little bit of a trail right here oh wow right here big panel oh let's get close and check this one out no stranger to one of these guys see those practically everywhere we explore and then it looks like there's a uh a line of sheep a bunch going on right here these ones look fresh like maybe a few hundred years and everything else is reclaimed by the uh by that varnish must be pretty old i heard it takes hundreds and hundreds of years for that patina to kind of come back through so must have been there for a long time it always amazes me to find rock art in these hidden corners of the desert even though this canyon feels empty and remote today i can't help but imagine a time when places like this were full of human life and the images they left in these rocks are reminders that people humans just like me and you were once here living lives built around routine family emotion and survival and these images that they left behind give lasting reminders of their presence and a small glimpse into their world first spiral we've seen today i wonder how long those have been there gotta be at least a few thousand years just my guess let's see what else we can find over here there's something right here maybe an unfinished bighorn sheep notice the small pile of stacked rocks on the ground maybe something else possible remnants of an old structure oh wow okay you know right over there there was a dotted line going straight across all those and this one also has that same dotted line they're clean this anthros headdress is huge it's crazy to think that somebody stood right here right where i'm standing and put this all in here right in this very exact spot and they chose to put three four human shaped figures and some bighorn sheep but what exact reason we'll probably never know let's keep looking see what we can find it's a warm one today guys and this sand is making it like two times as hot i don't know if my eyes are playing tricks on me but i think there's something up here and it looks pretty unique my gosh those are terrifying how did they get there there's some pretty ghoulish looking pictographs right here these are the ones i was looking for there's something especially incredible about finding pictographs like these unlike petroglyphs which are pecked into the stone these images were painted directly onto its surface they're much more fragile and with every passing century time and the elements slowly erase a little more of what remains the fact that any of this still survives out here makes seeing it feel that much more special to me i know native american rock art has several different meanings but there's something about this one that feels pretty spiritual they're very ghostly looking this makes me really wonder what was going on and makes me wonder why exactly they chose to put those images right there wow i bet there's just tons of things in this canyon i'm glad we're able to find those uh those pictographs it almost looks like there could have been structures up here too at one point i really do appreciate you guys watching your kind words they really do go a long way make sure to uh like this video and consider subscribing to the channel if you enjoy going on these adventures with me again comment below let me know where you guys are watching from i'd love to see it i'll see you guys all in the next adventure i wonder how many stories like these are still hidden very deep across the american west