# Mt Rich Petroglyphs Carved (c. 750)

URL: https://allhistories.com/grenada/timeline/750-mt-rich-petroglyphs-carved
Location: Mt Rich, Saint Patrick
Themes: main-event

Rock art is among the most striking legacies of Grenada's indigenous peoples. Petroglyphs are typically found near water, often with 'workstones' bearing cup-shaped hollows nearby, and are thought by most Caribbean archaeologists to have been made by shamans to mark places where ancestors gathered. At Mt Rich in Saint Patrick, several boulders in a ravine along the St Patrick River bear engraved faces and geometric designs; the largest stone alone carries over sixty images. Stylistic comparison once suggested that some carvings might date from as early as AD 500, but ceramics from the nearby Montreuil site and a radiocarbon date point to no earlier than about AD 700. Proxy evidence linking a period of aridity with population movements suggests that most of Grenada's rock art was made between about AD 750 and 900. First mentioned in the Grenada Magazine in 1833 and photographed by the Methodist minister Thomas Huckerby in 1921, the Mt Rich petroglyphs are now a community-run heritage attraction and part of the Ministry of Tourism's Petroglyph Path, although, like other archaeological sites, they lack formal legal protection. At this point in the timeline (c. 750–900 AD), no named ruler of Grenada is recorded; the island was home to Amerindian communities - Archaic-age visitors, Saladoid and later Arawak-speaking villagers and finally the Kalinago (Island Caribs), whose chiefs are not known by name before the 17th century.

## Why it matters
Mt Rich is Grenada's best-known rock-art site and a rare visual record of indigenous religion.

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Mt. Rich Petroglyphs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Rich_Petroglyphs)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — petroglyphs Caribbean](https://www.britannica.com/search?query=petroglyphs+Caribbean)
- [Wikipedia — Petroglyph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroglyph)
- [Wikipedia — Amerindian Grenada (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Grenada)