In northwestern New Mexico lies a massive sandstone mesa that is stunning in and of itself. Two ancestral Pueblo villages once thrived atop this mesa. It is called Atsinna, a fortress built for defense around 1275 A.D.

But this was more than ‘just’ the ancestral home for people of the northern plateau country. Spanish conquistadores, US Army soldiers and Union Pacific Railway surveyors all paused to dip a canteen at the year-round water supply hidden at the base of the cliff. And they left a record of their sojourns etched into the sandstone. Since prehistoric times, it has been a crossroads where passers-by left drawings, signatures, and narratives, creating a unique register of history.

This 200-foot high headland (El Morro means ‘the headlands’ or ‘the bluff’ in Spanish) is now called Inscription Rock. The petroglyphs at its base date from the time of the Atsinna Pueblo almost 800 years ago. The earliest recorded European inscription was left by Juan de Onate, who wrote (translated) “The Adelanto Don Juan de Onate passed by here coming from the discovery of the Sea of the South, the 16th of April 1605”.

Over 2000 inscriptions appear on the rock including 500 legible names and hundreds of messages and drawings. Some are gravestone inscriptions: some boast of conquests and discoveries. The names include Governor Manuel de Silva Nieto in 1629; a soldier in 1632; the reconqueror of New Mexico Diego de Vargas in 1692; Lieutenant James Simpson in 1849 and Lieutenant Edward Beale who passed by with a camel caravan in 1857. You can envision the march of Westward Expansion as soldiers and settlers making their way west added their names and dates.

The Inscription Trail is just a ½ mile walk from the Visitor Center and Museum, which chronicles 700 years of regional history. The walk leads to the historic pool and past hundreds of petroglyphs and inscriptions.