The Caves of Anubis

I stumbled across a book and the reference of a National Geographic article online about the Caves of Anubis when I was researching Oklahoma pan handle caves with the hopes of a good spring break road trip. I went to the National Geographic website, but I couldn’t find anything. I did find The Hitching Post Ranch which offers historical tours of the area. They take you to different caves on their land that have Celtic and Anasazi petroglyphs, a petrified tree, the tri-state marker and some dinosaur tracks. I asked Mrs Apple about the Caves of Anubis. She said it wasn’t on her land. At the end of the tour, she said she could show us the Caves of Anubis, and that she didn’t think the owners would mind. They seemed to be friends. So we got to see them!

There is a problem with caves being vandalized. No spray paint, but people carving their names , dates and pictures on top of the petroglyphs that have been there at least 1200 yrs or more. And because these were not her caves, Mrs Apple didn’t want to be responsible for leading potential vandals to someone else’s petroglyphs. So we were careful about parking the car. And I will follow suit and not give directions to these caves.

From a distance, there is really not too much special about the cave. Compared to other rock formations in the area, it doesn’t even look worth climbing into. The caves are set above ground level and we had to climb a ledge that was about 5-6 ft to get into them. It’s an easy climb.

There is a variety of petroglyphs in these caves. We saw Celtic drawings similar to other ones in the region. We was the same tally marks that Pigeon cave is covered in, but here I saw that they were crossed like we do our fifth tally mark. There were also animals, plants and people. The sun was there, and I thought that some looked like stars.

The first cave was the most impressive. It was actually the most impressive cave I saw in the whole region. There were people, there was a buffalo, a horse with a rider. There was a tent with two people next to it, the woman is thought to be a fertility goddess. There was what looked like an Egyptian jackal wearing what the Egyptian Pharaohs wore as a crown. Hence the name “Caves of Anubis”. And the jackal was facing a sun with an eye like shape. Which brings the Egyptian sun god Ra to mind.

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The second cave has 2 “windows” connecting it to the bigger cave. But I’m not small enough to fit so I had to rock climb around the dividing wall. It was exciting to know that my time at the rock wall payed off in a practical way. Not to mention the third of my childhood that I spent in trees. Actually, come to think of it, working out at Thrive has really helped on this trip too. But back on the subject of the caves: there were alot of tally marks in the second cave, not so many pictures. Well, there were pictures. But they were more shapes. Almost like letters to a primitive language. But nothing as interesting, varied and preserved as the first cave. The second cave was connected to a third cave. It was like a basement cave off to the left. The shape and the crevices in it reminded me of the inside of a human skull. I took anatomy in collage and I work in the medical field.

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The petroglyphs were a little easier to see in life. The shadows made taking pictures a little hard. the jackel is at the top of this last picture. Ironically, the sun is in the shade. You will have to look really close to see it. There is a second animal at the bottom. He’s outlined in chalk but is still hard to see.

The road trip was exhausting but it was totally worth it. It would have been worth it without seeing this cave. But this cave made it even more memorable. When I walk through museums, its going to be so much more fun to walk through the early human history parts because I’ll have seen stuff similar to what they’re talking about. And maybe I’ll run across a museum that will help me understand these particular petroglyphs better. It’s still crazy to think that Celtic, Anasazi (Native American) and Egyptian like petroglyphs are all within a 10 mile radius of each other, if not in the same cave!