Viewing the Supernova Pictograph
By Paul Kantzaridis

The trail heading to the Supernova pictograph was a treacherous, hot, dusty trail. The pictographs on the canyon walls distracted me from all that. There were many ditches, jumps and hills to go up and down. We needed sunscreen so we wouldn’t get burned. When you reach the Supernova pictograph all those harsh obstacles are fogotten. It’s cool under the rock overhang, and we could stop and have water and eat. The petroglyph isn’t on the wall, but on a ceiling-like overhang about 20 feet up. It has a star-like image at the left, a crescent moon on the right, and a left hand above them both. The star may represent the supernova of A.D. July 3, 1054; the crescent moon was what the moon’s phase was at that time and the hand might represent the direction to look and the artist/observer’s tag. If you follow the middle finger, it will point where in the sky the event happened. Underneath the pictograph there is a spiral with flames coming out the back, which could well have been Halley’s comet, which appeared a few years after the supernova. After you see the pictograph, you realize these people had a sharp eye and sophisticated observing skills.

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