One of Utah's most famous pictograph panels, a haunting set of images in the San Rafael Reef, has been damaged by vandals.
The ancient paintings are of two types, Barrier Canyon and the later Fremont style. Researchers in Texas recently used a minute fragment of another Barrier Canyon pictograph to chemically date the paint, finding it was 2,110 years old.
The vandalized panel is on state land in South Temple Wash, a few miles from Goblin Valley State Park, Emery County. It is on the main thoroughfare through the southern part of the San Rafael Reef, and many vacationers pass it every year.
On March 17, a Bureau of Land Management volunteer noticed that the panel had been vandalized by charcoal drawings, said Layne Miller, Price, a member of the Utah Rock Art Research Association.
"Someone has taken a piece of charcoal and drawn several symbols and other items below the panel itself," he said. The vandals imitated various styles of pictograph paintings.
"Most of the items are drawn on the cliff below the ancient pictographs, but there's also a section that would be 3 feet by a foot and a half that they've drawn on top of the rock art itself."
Miller said he is especially troubled by the fact that whoever did the damage was familiar with pictographs. That gives a nasty twist to the vandalism, showing it isn't just the prank of someone ignorant of the significance of ancient rock art.
The good news is that a conservator may be able to remove the charcoal in about two days of work, he said. The association is proposing to help pay for that project, plus put up a fence at the end of a nearby parking area and interpretive signs.
Miller said a cliff ledge that gives access to the panel, which is about 40 or 50 feet off the canyon floor, should be removed for a short distance to prevent people from climbing to the pictographs.
In addition to the name written in charcoal, investigators from the Emery County Sheriff's Department have other clues, he said. They obtained license numbers of all 600 visitors to Goblin Valley State Park in the period that the vandalism happened, around March 16 or 17.
Also, a woman who drove past the panel around the time of the damage reported that pickup trucks with Colorado license plates were parked there for the weekend.
The rock art association has offered a $500 reward for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrators.
"This is a desecration," said Jim Blazik, Moab, also a member of the association.
"What their purpose may have been is right beyond me. It's an illegal act, and I think they knew that. . . . This sort of thing needs to be stopped."
Kenny Wintch, an archaeologist with the Utah Division of State Trust Lands, said he hopes a court will fine the perpetrators enough to pay for the conservation work.
The administration of the State Trust Lands is concerned about the vandalism, he said. The division will "pursue it as vigorously as we can, in concert with local (law) enforcement jurisdiction."
Antiquities are an asset that belongs to the people of the state, he said. The division looks at pictographs as a benefit to education and science. Just as it manages coal, oil, gas and minerals, he said, "that's another asset that we care about."