Later, looking at my photographs, I see that the view from beneath the rock on the river side shows a fourth face, overhanging a vertical drop. Looking at this against the bright sky it had appeared a uniform grey. But the camera revealed a vast panel with fine drawings, highlighted by the low angle of the sun at a tangent to the face of the stone.
Other explorers had missed this, and it appeared that later artists had failed to add their layered contributions. Perhaps their motivation was not the same to justify climbing up or being lowered down the exposed rock face, or perhaps these drawings were done before the river ate away at earth on the Eastern side, and you could simple clamber up or stand on someone´s shoulders to etch the designs. This face of rock, clean of more recent over-writing, could be a clue to deciphering the palimsest.
7 th February, browsing my photographs, I noticed that the tendrils snaking out either side of the head of the sitting shaman, came from the same point, on his upper forehead.They were not in fact from either side, as they are invariably shown in frontal images.In fact from a certain angle, you could imagine that is was drawn as one continuous wavy line, which just tangentially touched the forehead of the god.
The problem with this interpretation was that the snake wouldbe horizontal. I had already come to the conclusion that the snakes were almost invariably positioned vertically on the rock, certainlyhere at Cocineros, and at Retama. The same was evident at Huancor. There was one exception here, a horizontal zigzag line with a pointed head that the wizened old guide cal led an arrow. Earlier photos showedthat this hadindeed been vertical, and the rock had fallen to its present position.
The snakes werealways vertical here because they were not actually snakes but water, or perhaps they were both snakes and water. But whilst snakes may travel horizontally or upwards,water will not. The head of thesnake toowas always at the upper end, Because it was actually a lake or a well, a water source.
I was looking at a photograph of the rock, on my computer screen, in a hot summernight in central Lima. What was up and down here? I saw that the angle at which I had taken the photograph was defining my up and down. Thesnake water chanel had asmallbutclear head, not so much a lake asa tiny pond. If that thenwas top, it was certainly possible that the apparently horizontal rock had a slight slope. But if the water snake was travelling up and down the rock, my shaman was on his side.
Looking again at the Shaman, I could see some problems. I hadcome to trust in the faithful depiction of certain featured in the rock art, but this shaman seated onhis rock had two tiny legs and two tiny arms, but his body hadnofront, his chest wasnot defined. Looked at an ther way,he had a chest, but hthe same continuous line I was interpreting as an arm, at the top, a body front,and a leg. This was n an elision I had seen in other drawings. His head had a forehead and an eye, but thefirst arm was also serving as his jawline. In short, an interesting minimal use of line created a simplified sittign shaman in a manner that Picasso wouldbe proud f, but not in a style that replicatedtheothersitting shamen, mostly from further South in Peru.
Reassessing then, if the snake is climbing up the rock, if the water is flowing down the rock from its source,then, turning my head, the horizontal line is across the stone in this direction, and we have a creature, leaping, with outstretched paws and hind legs, and a downward curling tail. We have a puma perhaps, an unusual leapng animal,but similar to one at Huancor.