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Pictographs are paintings or drawings that have been placed onto the rock face. Such artworks have typically been made with mineral earths and other natural compounds found across much of the world. The predominantly used colors are red, black and white.
Red paint is usually attained through the use of ground ochre, while black paint is typically composed of charcoal, or sometimes from minerals such as manganese. White paint is usually created from natural chalk, kaolinite clay or diatomaceous earth. Once the pigments had been obtained, they would be ground and usualy mixed with water, and then applied to the stone as paint using a brush, fingers, or a stamp. Alternately, the pigment could have been applied on dry, such as with a stick of charcoal.
The Hand Print
One unusual form of pictograph, found in many, although not all rock-art producing cultures, is the hand print of which there are three forms.
The first involves covering the hand in wet paint and then applying it to the rock. The second involves a design being painted onto the hand, which is then in turn added to the surface. The third involves the hand first being placed against the panel and then paint is blown through a tube onto and around the hand, in a process that is akin to air-brush or spray-painting. The resulting image is a negative print of the hand, and is sometimes described as a stencil of the hand.
Serious Fading of the Colors
What I have found at most locations are that the pictograph, because of the ongoing exposure to the element are extremely faded, most to the point where the pictograph is nearly unrecognizable. This is true even of those found under rock shelters and in stone stacker dwellings.
For the best example of how badly the pictograph fade, see the pictograph at Gila Cliff Dwelling. A link to this page is below under The North American Pictograph section header.
Still, an examination of the pictograph of the ancients can provide us with some insight as to who they were and what was important to them. This gallery in not inclusive of all pictograph sites, rather it include some of those that are indicative of the culture of the people during this time and history of man only upon this continent.
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