Petroglyphs / Ki'i Pohaku

On Hawaii Island vast areas of the landscape are weathered slabs of pahoehoe lava. These were the ancient canvas chosen to carve images in the prehistoric past. Similar to Rock Art found globally Hawaii has the distinction of hosting 10's of thousands of these 'rock pictures'.

Visual Sources

Hawaii's petroglyphs date from first human contact approximately 1500 years ago.

Artist Inspiration

Once I began to photo-document these prehistoric galleries and visited their locations, a series of paintings was visualized and produced well over 200 works. I was immediately attracted to their simplicity and abundant variety. Roll mouse over titles to see paintings. Read more about petroglyphs..

Ki'i Pohaku O Ka'u #56

Ki'i Pohau O Ka'u #11

Ki'i Pohaku O Ka'u #10

I've sampled a few sites for this online petroglyph anthology. Some are famous and heavily visited while others are small and remote. Each area is unique and carved on different lava flows some older than others. I put together these galleries using my extensive library of photos and attempted to present the highlights of the ki'i pohaku found there. Enjoy!

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