Peterborough Petroglyphs

The Peterborough Petroglyphs are a remarkable collection of over 900 ancient images carved into crystalline limestone located near Peterborough in Ontario, Canada.

After being lost for centuries, the Peterborough Petroglyphs was rediscovered by historian Charles Kingam in 1924.

The limestone at Peterborough is generally believed to have been carved by the Algonkian people between 900 and 1400 AD. Today, the First Nations people of Ontario call the carvings Kinomagewapkong, meaning "the rocks that teach."

However, there are several other theories of the date and authors of the remarkable petroglyphs:

The area surrounding the petroglyphs was established as Petroglyphs Provincial Park in 1976.

The Peterborough Petroglyphs consist of more than 900 individual images, which are carved into a slab of crystalline limestone 180 feet (55 m) long and 100 feet (30 m) wide. About 300 of these are discipherable shapes, including humans, shamans, animals, solar symbols, geometric shapes and boats.

The boat drawings among the petroglyphs do not resemble the traditional boat of the Native Americans. One solar boat — a stylized shaman vessel with a long mast surmounted by the sun — is typical of petroglyphs found in northern Russia and Scandanavia.

A fissure in the rock is thought to have been revered as the entrance to the underworld or the symbolic womb of the Earth Mother.