When the sun is just right in the sky you can see yet another animal
petroglyph at the Barnesville Track Rocks in eastern Ohio. The right mix of shadow and
highlight on the pecked surface of the rock outcrop produces the image of an almost
Disney-like fox. The image is very old, much weathered and, under
other light circumstances, hard to see.
This ancient petroglyph is very unusal in that it shows the animal in relation to a pecked
circle which may have been purposely engraved to represent the animal's lair. So far as we
know, this petroglyph has never been previously reported. Moreover, we know of no other
petroglyph anywhere in the country that depicts this relationship of animal to den.
The actual dengraving, including animal and circle, measures 15 inches wide
and 10 ½ inches high. The animal's body, although at first probably pecked in outline
only, has been completely recessed into the rock surface. A rubbing taken from the
engraving is shown here at reduced scale.
