Red Lady of Joshua Tree National Park... Saw this on my hike Sunday. My two pix show first the Red Lady, then the metate(what they ground food in) with the Red Lady in the background. Its pretty awesome. Here is an explanation of the Red Lady -----anthropomorphic figure, likely of Chemehuevi origin. She’s made of red pigment and found in a rock shelter in the Wonderland of Rocks. The shelter is formed by two huge boulders leaning against each other and is believed to be a fertility site. The Red Lady seems to be watching over a much older bedrock mortar near the center of the shelter. A dozen small cupules cover the rock surrounding the mortar, these were probably used for grinding seeds and nuts, or paint pigments. The fascinating thing about this site and what leads archaeologists to believe that the Chemehuevi or Serrano may have used it to mark the first day of spring and the return of fertility to the earth is this: on the Spring Equinox, the midday sun casts an “arrow of light” that directly intersects the bedrock mortar. This suggests the “theme of Earth being impregnated by the Sun,” and the beginning of the season of fertility. Jon Carlson
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 02:27:52 +0000
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