Utah BLM Seeks Leads in Vandalism of Protected Petroglyph Panel
Utah – The Utah Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Uintah County Sheriff’s Office are asking for public help in identifying those responsible for illegally installing climbing bolts near a protected ancient petroglyph located east of the Colorado border last November.
According to a social media post by the Utah BLM, the placement of the climbing bolts is considered an “unauthorized alteration of a registered archaeological site.” The petroglyph panel, which depicts a pregnant sheep, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is protected under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979.
While details about the Pregnant Sheep panel’s history remain scarce, the Natural History Museum of Utah suggests that similar petroglyphs found in southern Utah date back to around 1100 CE.
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The installation of the climbing bolts was discovered last November, with three bolts placed on the surface below the petroglyph and three others found on a ledge beneath it. One of the bolts even had a climbing ring attached to it.
Petroglyphs and other examples of prehistoric rock art across Utah have been victims of vandalism in recent years. The discovery of these climbing bolts came just as two individuals were caught carving into petroglyphs along the Wire Pass Trail in Kane County, with one woman arrested in early December for the vandalism.
For the Indigenous communities in the region, petroglyphs and rock art are not only important archaeological evidence but also hold deep cultural and spiritual significance. Autumn Gillard, the cultural resource manager for the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, expressed the gravity of the vandalism, telling NBC affiliate KSL News, “For us, as tribal people, these are our churches. When folks go in and they vandalize panels, or they vandalize cultural sites, we correlate it to the same thing as if somebody was to go into a temple or a religious space and were to write graffiti all over it.”
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