The Winged Monster Unmasked: Black Dragon Canyon and Temple Mountain Wash Pictographs - San Rafael Swell

Utah's quiet San Rafael Swell has awe-inspiring Archaic Period pictographs and the alleged "winged monster" high on the walls of Black Dragon Canyon.

Related:
In Search of the Rattlesnake Petroglyph
​Corn Springs Petroglyphs:  Vison Quests, Steamboats and Ringing Rocks
Utah's Red Rock Country

Temple Mountain Wash pictographs near Goblin Valley State Park
These figures are Barrier Canyon Style and date to the Archaic Period:  several proposed dates include as far back as 8,000 BC or a younger time of 1,100 AD (see interpretive sign below).

Trip Stats
Black Dragon Canyon:  (Northeastern San Rafael Reef) Driving west on I-70, 12.5 miles from Green River, Utah, turn off at mile marker 147 onto a dirt road with a closed gate.  Close the gate after entering.  The road quickly crosses over the wash on the left.  We went a short distance along the right side of the wash until we found a better crossing and got back on the main, well-traveled road that heads north in the direction of the reef.  The entrance to Black Dragon Wash is on the left at the Mexican Mountain Wilderness sign, 1.1 mile from the interstate.  We drove 4x4 truck on good sand to the fenced at base of pictographs and parked.
Temple Mountain Wash:  (Southeastern San Rafael Reef) From Green River, Utah on I-70, travel west to the junction with highway 24 that goes to Hanksville. Go toward Hanksville (south) for about 25 miles to Mile Post 135.  Turn left (west) at road to Goblin Valley State Park and drive 5.1 miles to junction.  Drive straight for 1.0 mile - the panel is on your right with an interpretive sign.
Maps/Books:  Hiking and Exploring Utah's San Rafael Swell by Michael R. Kelsey/San Rafael Swell Map (Price Field Office)- National Geographic Trails Illustrated #712.
Dates Hiked:  May 9-11, 2023.

Utah I-70 piercing the San Rafael Reef  (tilted light sandstone).
The Swell was caused by a vertical fault in ancient Precambrian basement rocks that lifted the western block higher than the eastern block of the fault, causing the younger layers of overlying rocks to drape over the fault zone creating an anticline, or "swell".

The San Rafael Swell and its near-vertical tilted sandstone beds named the San Rafael Reef is a Utah adventurer's paradise.  Many steep and scenic canyons like Crack, Chute, and Zero Gravity cut through the reef.  There's the Upper and Lower Black Boxes, old homesteads, mines, the San Rafael Knob, pictographs and petroglyphs from Archaic and Fremont cultures.  The last time Fred and I visited this area, we stayed in Goblin Valley Campground and explored the Archaic Great Gallery/Holy Ghost pictograph panels in remote Horseshoe Canyon.

You're on your own in this remote part of Utah; there aren't many services, campgrounds or signs in the San Rafael Recreation Area (which has several official Wilderness Areas).  And not many people ;).  We barely scratched the surface with a few hikes and petroglyph/pictograph viewings.  We trailer-camped in nearby Green Valley, Utah.

One day, we stumbled upon the amazing Temple Mountain Wash pictographs when driving to hike Wild Horse Creek Trail.  You can see where much of the pictograph panel has spalled off because of the elements of water and minerals.

On another day, we drove the sandy roads to see the Spring Canyon petroglyphs and the Black Dragon Canyon pictographs and then walked up-canyon from there.   It was here we saw the fabled "winged monster", a disconcerting pictograph that prompted scientists to unravel its mystery. 

Temple Mountain Wash panel
These pictographs are Fremont style (AD 100 - AD 1300) and located to the left of the Barrier Canyon pictographs (above).
Spalling, the breaking off of the surface of the rock, has removed previously-painted pictographs.

Interpretive sign at the site.

The "Dragon" Controversy In Black Dragon Canyon:  a winged monster, a man, a grebe - what is it?
The sandy road leading to the pictographs in high-walled Black Dragon Canyon was in good shape, so we were able to park in the large space adjacent to these astounding pictographs.  The left-most figures are in the characteristic Archaic Barrier Canyon style, with tall dark red mysterious-looking figures. To the right of these are Fremont Style pictographs featuring animals, abstract lines including concentric circles, lines, dots and zig-zags.  It's always fun to imagine how the native peoples applied these red pigments.  In this case, however, it wasn't fun to see the annoying white chalk lines drawn around some of the weathered pictographs.  A large rockfall under the Archaic pictographs allowed the creators to paint their images high on the wall.  There's a camera present with a sign.

​With apparent wings and a long tail, an unusual pictograph looks like a dragon/dinosaur creature, hence the name Black Dragon Canyon.   In 1928, it got a reputation as a "winged monster", when amateurs discovered it. In the 1940's, John Simonson drew a chalk line defining his interpretation of a winged monster or dragon, and published a paper describing his methods.  Decades later, a geologist said it resembled a pterodactyl, so the Young Earth Creationists started using this as evidence that Native Americans and pterodactyls lived at the same time.  ​

The "dragon" in Black Dragon Canyon - mistaken identity
Chalk lines drawn around separate Fremont style pictographs to define a dragon.
Modern diagnostic techniques revealed five separate pictographs that were previously outlined together as one "winged monster" - possibly a pterodactyl.  For instance, the "head" of this creature is actually a supplicating man.
(I didn't include the furthest-left pictograph in this photo).

Enter modern technology:  diagnostic tools to image the red pigment and iron that has faded over the years and not seen by the human eye. Dstretch enhances photographs of pictographs by revealing faded pigments, and x-ray fluorescence measures the iron concentration in the red pigment to see where Native Americans applied the pigment to the rock.

Conclusion:  There are five separate pictographs encircled by the white chalk outline (see Dstretch illustration below), so the single "winged monster" pictograph has been debunked.  From left to right:  a bighorn sheep, a dog, a large, bug-eyed anthropomorph with a snake in his hand, a small man bent at the waist in supplication with his arms outstretched, and a large, sinuous horned snake.  All five are the Barrier Canyon style.  Simonson had converted the small man pictograph into the head and neck of a dragon.

I also found a paper (no date, but spoke of trips to the site in the 1990's) that stated this pictograph is a representation of an eared grebe, a type of waterfoul that breeds in the area and may have been hunted.  The person who painted it may have been summoning the spirit of the grebe to bring more water.   But now this interpretation has been debunked.

Photo of an eared grebe courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology - Macaulay Library.

Dstretch technique illustration of all five of the images found in the "dragon" pictograph in Black Dragon Canyon
(from left to right):  Bighorn sheep, dog, a tall figure, a smaller figure with arms outstretched in supplication, and a horned snake.  Chalk lines currently include all of these pictographs into one image of a "dragon".
Compare this to the now-discredited "dragon" above.  
(I drew this image from a photo in "The Death of a Pterodactyl," by Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, Paul Bahn and Marvin Rowe,  from
Antiquity, Volume 89, p 872-884, 2015).  Here is the link to the real picture:  
https://www.livescience.com/51886-winged-monster-rock-art-deciphered.html​

The largest Archaic Barrier Canyon style pictographs seen in Black Dragon Canyon.

Black Dragon Canyon pictograph panels 

The Barrier Canyon Style of pictographs
The largest concentration of Barrier Canyon style pictographs occurs in and around the San Rafael Swell.  Rock paintings in this style date back to the Archaic period.  There's a variety of dates proposed for their creation, as far back as 6,000 B.C. to 700 A.D.  One more recent study used luminescence dating techniques to arrive at an age of A.D. 1 -1,100 for the Great Gallery (left).
Anthropomorphic figures (human characteristics) dominate this style and appear in three forms:  the spirit figure, the citizen figure, and the composite figure, usually in an elongated form.  The spirit figure is often seen without arms and legs.  Barrier Canyon artists usually painted with red colors that came from red ochre or iron oxide (hematite).

The "Holy Ghost" in the Great Gallery panel in Horseshoe Canyon, Canyonlands NP
Utah's Red Rock Country

We walked up-canyon a few miles toward the Swell.  Black Dragon Mine (uranium) is located on the south side of the canyon. We saw what looked to be the remains of an old truck and some mining tailings.  We saw a few mountain bikers riding down-canyon; there's some great biking routes in the San Rafael Swell.  So many reasons to love Utah and the American West:  intriguing Native American rock art, infinite forms of warm-colored weathered sandstone, so much open area to move around in, and its beautiful peace.

As I write this post, I look forward to sharing our Crack Canyon adventure in this majestic and silent land.  Silent, and I can feel every once in awhile the spirits of those who traveled these canyons and plateaus, who painted and pecked images on walls hundreds and thousands of years ago.

"Time and space. In the desert there is space. Space is the twin sister of time. If we have open space then we have open time to breathe, to dream, to dare, to play, to pray to move freely, so freely, in a world our minds have forgotten but our bodies remember. Time and space. This partnership is holy. In these redrock canyons, time creates space--an arch, an eye, this blue eye of sky. We remember why we love the desert; it is our tactile response to light, to silence, and to stillness."
-  Terry Tempest Williams from Red:  Passion and Patience in the Desert.

Both images above near Black Dragon Canyon at dusk.

Fertility petroglyphs?
Driving up Black Dragon Canyon a little further to park and hike up-canyon, we spotted these petroglyphs high up on a huge boulder - supposedly a man and a woman and Kokopelli, the fertility deity and flute player.
The only reference I could find was a hiking website that described these as a "fertility scene".
Kokopelli has a backpack with what might be seeds and the same small peck marks are arranged in a crescent shape beneath each figure, and on the man.

The hike up Black Dragon Road passes near the Black Dragon Mine, whose main commodity was uranium.  
This road is a mountain-bike route to the plateau area of the San Rafael Swell.

Wild Horse Creek in the reef south of Black Dragon Canyon.

A camping spot surrounded by tall walls of honeycomb weathering in Wild Horse Creek Trail, a creek south of Black Dragon Canyon that transects the reef.

Sandstone detail in Wild Horse Creek.

Along the mining exploration road leading out of Black Dragon Canyon.  A great road for mountain biking.

Arches in Spring Canyon, on the way to Black Dragon Canyon.

possibly an ancient mud ripple panel

probably antelope

a very old juniper tree

mining truck (?) remains in Black Dragon Canyon

Spring Canyon petroglyphs

Black Dragon Canyon petroglyph

Green River, Utah

Unimog

Some cool stuff on the trail and in the Green River State Park Campground.

Juniper tree trunk blending with sandstone cross-beds.

References
Allee, P.A. et al.  The Black Dragon Solar Solstice Markers and Calendar.  utahrockart2.org.

Demarco, E.  'Winged Monster' on Ancient Rock Art Debunked by Scientists.  Science website, August 25, 2015.

Geggel, L.  2015.  "Winged Monster" Rock Art Finally Deciphered.  from LiveScience website.

The Eared Grebe.  From the Cornell Lab All About Birds website.

Mitton, J. 2020.  Controversial Interpretations of the Black Dragon Pictograph.  Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine.  University of Colorado - Boulder.

Sucec, David.  The B.C.S. Project:  Barrier Canyon Rock Art Style.  www.bcsproject.org/barrierstyle.html