Four panels on the southern side of the southern-most boulder slope steeply down towards the ground. Each is two or three metres long and together they are eight metres wide. The surfaces are intensely covered with petroglyphs. There are around three hundred discrete elements pecked into the rock on these panels, more than ten per square metre. The different elements are spaced apart. Less than ten elements overlap other elements, and those are all clearly brighter and whiter, implying that they were created more recently.
Across the north facing panel of Piedra 4, low down, a series of images has been pecked into the rock surface. The images run parallel to the ground, which is sloping. They are 20 to 60 cm above the present day ground level, To hold a stone and beat it against the rock surface at this height is difficult for an adult. They would be hitting down at the panel, at the level of their knees or crotch. The rebounding stone could be painful.
Whoever made these images may have made an artistic choice to create them in this position. I use the term artistic in the broadest sense. Or they could have knelt down or squatted. Uncomfortable perhaps, but there are images here drawn high up on steeply sloped panels, or on the upper surface of high boulders. It is difficult to imagine someone scaling these heights unaided, more probable that they used ladders or ropes, and had people to help them.
There are similar images, also low down, on Piedra 11. They share other characteristics – camelids with eyes, and morphing between camelids and birds. The ears of the camelid become the beak of a bird, via intermediate images that could be both llama and bird. Short little llama tails grow into curvaceous bird fans.
Tagging
Six pointed stars composed of three intersecting lines at thirty degree angles are seen on Piedra 10 (three times) and Piedra 11 (once).
Crabs
A crab-like geometric figure consisting of two intersecting curved lines is on Piedra 11 once and Piedra 12 twice. The three are finely crafted and the lines are unusually thin.
Foxes
A figure with an elaborately curved tail, seen in profile with two legs, a short neck, muzzle and ears is seen three times on the river-facing panel of Piedra 12, and twice on the river-facing panel of Piedra 6a. Both these panels are on the eastern edge of the site.
Fantastic birds
Elements
Uniqueness
The horizontal top of Piedra 11 features a giant tumi or sacrificial knife, with a blade 1.4 metres long and a shaft of some 80 cm. Around are several more tumis with the same rounded shape, most facing like their giant companion out across the river. Another 21 tumis adorn this massive boulder, all facing outwards from this central peak. Those tumis, however, are rectilinear, and many are so similar in style and patina that they were probably drawn at the same time. They are considerably brighter than other elements – unline the central rounded tumi – and so appear to represent a reinforcement or rededication of the rock.
Other boulders too have their unique elements, often considerably larger than the typically 10-20 cm dimensions of often repeated camelids, tumis, stars and serpent-rivers. Piedra 10 has a 60 cm x 60 cm design which could be a face with large eyes and streaming hair, a depiction of a weaving loom, or, for Nuney Jimenez, a figure carrying trophy heads. Whatever it is, it dominates this relatively small panel.