Sad and Madding

What's the matter with us?

Vandals permanently damaged sandstone walls and destroyed archaeological artifacts in the process of inscribing their names in Mesa Verde National Park.

Names written on sandstone walls, prehistoric charcoal dug up and destroyed, rock cairns pointlessly strewn across the desert: Mesa Verde sees its fair share of vandalism.

On June 20th, 2017, Mesa Verde National Park experienced its latest vandalism. (We know the exact date because David and Edith let the world know on 6/20/17 that they clearly love each other.)

Located in southwest Colorado, Mesa Verde National Park contains wall paintings dating to 2500 BC and entire buildings from 1200 AD. It’s listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and sees 580,000 visitors per year.

The visitors jerks dug up prehistoric charcoal along the Petroglyph Point trail. They then used it to inscribe their names on the sandstone face nearby. This not only destroyed the archaeological artifact, but also taints the experience for future visitors.

Mesa Verde National Park posted the extent of vandalism to Facebook, painted rocks and cairns included.

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I never understand why people do things like that. That is sad.

 

We have been to the mountain province last weekend. In one mountain in the ascending zigzag road, there was a huge bust of our former president similar to the style of Mt. Rushmore. I was trying to look for it when my nephew pointed to a spot on the mountain that looked like cement. He said that it used to be the bust but political enemies of the former president used bombs to deface the monument. Now there was practically nothing left of the bust. It was a popular landmark that was removed due to political differences.