The group is dedicated to preserving and recording the ancient paintings found on rugged...
Laura Tolley/ContributorCOMSTOCK – Standing at the edge of a steep gorge on a private ranch here in the desert canyonlands of the Lower Pecos River, I look down at a notch in the canyon rim and a narrow cantilevered path known as a “bench” that I’ll be traversing shortly. I try to assure myself that I’m not afraid of heights. If the precocious 11-year-old girl in our group can make it, so can I. “PAY ATTENTION!” I tell myself. “Don’t let your mind wander.
Our destination is the “Halo Shelter,” an intricate, multi-figured painting applied by unknown artists to a limestone “mural” under a parabola-shaped overhang. On a private ranch near the Devil’s River, the site is 50 feet long and 15 feet high. Shumla has discovered some paintings that are up to 30 feet high, which means the artists had to use some kind of scaffolding to complete their work.
Staring at the rock, my eyes are drawn to a row of miniature deer, like Santa’s reindeer I think to myself. I try to make sense of a long, narrow figure with what resembles a halo around its head . The clustered figures are connected; the complex creation is telling a story. What I'm looking at, Shumla executive director Jessica Lee Hamlin has said, is as significant archeologically as Stonehenge or the Sphinx.
“The sites are really, really vulnerable,” Katie reminds us. “Part of Shumla’s documentation is for when they’re no longer visible.” Rudy Banny, a young archaeological chemist, explains to us the workings of Shumla’s plasma oxidation laboratory where he and students from Comstock High School – Shumla Scholars, they’re called – prepare rock samples for radiocarbon dating. Rudy sends their findings to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to do the actual carbon dating.
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