Thirteen Faces Panel

About This Experience

We had only a vague clue that somewhere in the area there was an unusual panel of painted human figures. There were no precise directions to follow, and that was exactly how we wanted it. After a relatively short walk we reached the general area, but knowing that something is nearby and actually finding it are two very different things in Canyonlands. Sandstone walls, shallow alcoves, vegetation and shadows can hide surprisingly large panels from view, so we began searching, moving slowly and looking beneath every promising overhang. For a while there was nothing. Then, through some bushes, we caught the first glimpse of white and red on the rock. We moved around the vegetation, looked up—and suddenly there they were. A row of strange human-like beings was staring out from the sandstone. It was immediately obvious why this panel had become known as the Thirteen Faces. The figures were unlike almost anything else we had seen in the Southwest: broad, almost rectangular bodies, large U-shaped heads, simple horizontal eyes and elaborate details of clothing and decoration. Some retained surprisingly strong white pigment, while traces of red revealed necklaces, sashes, headdresses and other details. They seemed both human and strangely abstract, standing side by side like a silent assembly that had been waiting beneath the overhang for centuries. The archaeological history behind them makes the panel even more fascinating. The style is now called the Faces Motif, an anthropomorphic rock-art tradition known only from the Canyonlands area. Earlier researchers noticed similarities with elaborate Fremont clay figurines found farther north, and for many years some archaeologists suggested that the people living here had borrowed Fremont artistic ideas. Later studies, however, recognized the Faces Motif as something much more local: rows of nearly life-sized, front-facing anthropomorphs associated with Mesa Verde Ancestral Puebloan sites in Canyonlands. Their most characteristic feature is the peculiar U-shaped face, flat across the top and curved beneath the chin, usually with eyes but virtually no other facial features. Their bodies often end at the waist with sashes or continue to the knees with what appear to be kilts. Unlike many Fremont anthropomorphs, they lack arms, horns and obvious indications of gender. The dating is equally interesting. Most Faces Motif figures occur in association with masonry granaries or habitation structures, and both the architecture and pottery belong predominantly to the Pueblo III period. A chronological model using radiocarbon dates from these sites and their surroundings places the tradition approximately between AD 1170 and 1300. In other words, the people responsible for these figures were living in the Canyonlands canyons during the final century or so of major Ancestral Puebloan occupation before the region was largely abandoned. Even the name “Thirteen Faces” contains a small mystery. The archaeological inventory in the report actually records 14 anthropomorphs at this particular site. It also identifies numerous surviving attributes among them, including hair bobs, eyes, painted faces and chests, jewelry, sashes and kilts. Looking at the panel, those details suddenly become much more important than simple decoration. Some figures appear to wear kilts, a form of clothing historically associated with Pueblo men and ceremonial activity, although the authors point out that kilts may also once have been ordinary male clothing. Other Faces Motif figures elsewhere wear feather or hair-comb headdresses, necklaces, pendants and other ornaments. The report suggests that the striped sashes may represent loom-woven cotton textiles characteristic of the Mesa Verde world. These details therefore may have communicated something about who these people were rather than merely making the figures attractive. The most intriguing question, of course, is who are these faces supposed to represent? Their expressions give us almost nothing. There are usually no noses or mouths, just simple eyes—often little more than straight horizontal lines. Earlier interpretations proposed that such featureless faces might represent masks, but the report argues against connecting them with the later Pueblo katsina tradition. Instead, Nancy Coulam proposes a much more haunting possibility: perhaps we are looking at ancestors. The repeated, standardized faces do not appear to be portraits of particular living individuals. The straight eyes could even symbolize the closed eyes of the dead. Combined with the repeated human forms and the conspicuous clothing, jewelry and ornaments, the figures may have represented deceased ancestors rather than ordinary people. There is another clue: visibility. Many Faces Motif panels were deliberately placed where they could be seen from considerable distances across a canyon or river. Archaeologists studying style and communication have argued that highly visible imagery is often connected with social identity. The report therefore suggests that the Faces Motif may have communicated something about the group that lived here—a community or kin group whose members believed themselves descended from common ancestors. That opens an intriguing possibility for what the panel may have meant almost eight centuries ago. These may have been more than mysterious supernatural beings painted for ritual purposes. They could have represented the ancestral identity of a small community: a visual statement saying, in effect, this is who we are, these are the people from whom we come, and this is our place. The clothing and jewelry could have indicated the identity or status of that community, while displaying the ancestors prominently on the canyon wall may also have reinforced the group’s relationship with the land and its resources. The report ultimately proposes that a small kin group may have placed these images on the canyon walls both to express its unity and to symbolize its connection to resources and to the wider Mesa Verde society. Importantly, the authors themselves emphasize that identifying the figures as ancestors remains a hypothesis rather than something that can be scientifically proven. Standing in front of the panel, that uncertainty only made it more powerful. The simple slit eyes that had looked strange when we first spotted the figures through the bushes now seemed almost deliberate. Were they closed eyes? Were these remembered ancestors watching over a community? Were the different necklaces, sashes and headdresses signs of families, roles or status? Or did the paintings mean something entirely different that has been lost with the people who created them? We could only speculate. What remained certain was that someone around eight centuries ago had deliberately chosen this wall and created an extraordinary procession of human forms. They were not casually scratched into the sandstone. Pigment, clothing details, repeated forms and careful arrangement show that considerable thought went into the composition. The photograph reproduced in the archaeological report still reveals the extraordinary row of red-and-white figures and the differences between them. Finding them made the experience even more memorable. There had been no long expedition and no dramatic climb—just a short walk, a vague clue and a little searching in the right area. Yet for several minutes the bushes concealed almost everything. Then suddenly the canyon wall seemed to come alive with people from another age. That transition—from seeing nothing but sandstone and vegetation to realizing that an entire row of ancient figures was watching from behind the bushes—was unforgettable. Perhaps that is also why the Thirteen Faces remain so compelling. We can determine approximately when they were created, recognize the clothes and ornaments they appear to wear, and reconstruct something about the community that lived around them. But the most important part—the message the painters intended—still belongs to them. Eight hundred years later, the faces remain silent.