Massive Human Silhouettes in the Colorado Desert Preserve Ancient Native American Traditions

Blythe Intaglios

In the dry California desert, ancient artists worked on a scale most of us can’t grasp. The Blythe Intaglios are huge figures scraped into the earth, some longer than a football field, all telling stories of Native American culture. Here’s the remarkable tale of these sacred desert giants.

How These Massive Figures Were Created

The folks who made these massive drawings scraped away dark rocks to show lighter soil underneath. They carefully placed the removed rocks around the edges, and packed down the exposed dirt to keep plants from growing and ruining the designs.

Those rocks have a black coating locals call “desert varnish” – it’s what gives the drawings their pop. The scraping varies from just a couple inches deep at the edges to over a foot in the middle parts.

Scientists found this varnish is actually clay minerals stuck together with manganese and iron deposits. The whole process would’ve been brutal work – hand-scraping rocks under the desert sun, then stomping the soil flat enough to last centuries.

The Creators Never Saw The Whole Figures

Here’s the kicker – these huge images stretching over 100 feet across couldn’t actually be seen completely from the ground. You’d need to be way up in the sky above them. No nearby hill is tall enough to see the whole pattern.

The Age is Still Unknown

Archaeologist Jay von Werlhof’s radiocarbon tests showed these figures might date anywhere from 900 BCE to 1200 CE, spanning over two millennia. Newer testing with something called “accelerator mass spectrometry” narrowed it down to between 550-1150 CE.

Dating these things is a nightmare since there’s no wood or bone to test – just rock and dirt.

Some figures connect to 2,000-year-old cliff homes nearby, backing up the older dating possibilities.

Ritual Creation Process

There’s solid evidence the place was central for spiritual gatherings.

Circles around the site show where people danced, with trails leading right to the figures and ceremonial stone piles nearby. Local tribes held sacred dances here to honor their creation stories.

Figure Composition

The complete collection includes three human figures, two four-legged animals looking like horses, one spiral that might be a snake, and various lines and shapes scattered around.

All of these sit on raised flat areas above where the Colorado River used to flood.

The six main figures are clustered in three spots, all within about 1,000 feet of each other across two mesa tops. Get this – the figures might have lined up with the sunrise during solstices and equinoxes, suggesting they were also used to track seasons.

Enormous Dimensions

The biggest human figure stretches a whopping 171 feet with outstretched arms – especially impressive considering they used sticks and stones to make it. Even the smallest human figure is still a massive 95 feet long.

Let’s put that in perspective – the largest figure equals half a football field. All the human figures stretch longer than 100 feet, and the animal drawings each measure more than 50 feet from nose to tail.

Out of about 600 similar drawings across North America, these Blythe ones stand out because they’re absolutely gigantic. You can actually spot them on Google Earth despite being made before Europeans ever set foot here.

Anatomical Details

The attention to detail at this scale is mind-boggling. One 102-foot human figure clearly shows male parts. Another figure faces north-south with arms spread wide, feet pointing outward, and even has knees and elbows clearly marked, stretching 105.6 feet from head to toe.

The big female figure has a 158-foot wingspan with exaggerated joints, defined fingers and toes, a slightly swollen belly on one side, long neck, and even used special quartzite rocks for the nose, mouth, and chest.

Most human figures have deeply dug-out torsos while the arms and legs are shallower. They somehow balanced between simple outlines and surprisingly specific body features.

Serpent Design

The snake drawing shows a rattlesnake with actual rocks placed as eyes. It stretches 150 feet from head to tail but has been damaged over the years by vehicles driving across it.

The snake coils in a perfect spiral. Those eye rocks are positioned just right to make it look alive despite being bigger than a semi truck.

If you look from above, you can still make out the rattles on its tail.

Fisherman Figure

One of the coolest drawings shows what looks like a man holding a spear, with two fish below him, and a sun and serpent floating above. Some experts argue about this one, wondering if it might be newer than the other drawings.

This scene tells a whole story in one image. Some think it shows hunting, others see it as illustrating part of a creation myth.

It’s the most argued-about drawing, with some folks suggesting it was added in the 1930s, though most experts think it’s genuinely ancient.

Creation Myth Representation

According to the Mohave and Quechan tribes who still live in the area, the human figures represent Mastamho, their Creator of Earth and all life. The animal figures show Hatakulya, one of two mountain lion beings who helped with creation.

Torso Characteristics

In almost all sixty sites with human figures across this region, the torsos are deeply dug out while arms and legs are much shallower.

This weird pattern shows up all over. The deeper torso trenching suggests the body’s core held special meaning or was the first part they created.

The keruk, a funeral ceremony practiced by local tribes, involved acting out the creator’s death, which might explain the emphasis on the body’s center. Some figures are just basic outlines while others have detailed faces and fingers – like different artists worked on them over the centuries.

Geographical Distribution

While you can find rock drawings throughout southeastern California deserts, human figures only appear near the Colorado River. The other desert drawings show mountain lions, birds, snakes, and various strange shapes.

Human figures cluster along the river while animal shapes spread wider across the region. The Blythe drawings are just part of over 200 similar artworks in the Colorado Desert – the only place in North America with these desert intaglios.

A similar group called the Ripley Group exists just across the river in Arizona. The figures follow ancient walking trails that connected different tribal territories, like spiritual road signs.

Relationship to Landscape

Before they dammed up the Colorado River to water Phoenix and Vegas, spring floods would turn the valley into what looked like an inland sea. These drawings sit on raised areas above the flood zone, strategically positioned to look out over the water.

The location wasn’t random. For the Mojave and Quechan tribes, the Colorado River wasn’t just water – it was central to their spiritual beliefs and daily survival.

Standing where the figures are, you can see the blue ribbon of the Colorado to the east and the rugged Big Maria Mountains to the west. The river represented both life and a boundary between worlds, making this high ground the perfect spot for sacred images.