Samalayuca is a community south of Ciudad Juárez, flanked by the Samalayuca mountain range and extensive dunes that shelter small springs that for thousands of years have given life to the place. There are 21 rock art sites in the area with at least 3000 petroglyphs and paintings. The paintings are scarce and depict hunters with spears. The highlight of the landscape are the thousands of 2000-year-old petroglyphs. Most correspond to a style identified as a Southern extension of the Mogollón Journey, which originated in the state of New Mexico, and which had its main development between 1200 and1450 A.C. Samalayuca's petroglyphs represent nature, flora and fauna, as well as scenes and rituals of individuals, animals, and a lot of abstract shapes and figures. Among the petroglyphs, can be identified the figures of the ram, the deer, the snake, the rain, the corn, the hunting, masks of katchinas spirits and humans with arms raised or fallen. Petroglyphs are the will of a culture that disappeared but laid the foundations for a lifestyle that allowed its descendants to survive in the Chihuahua desert.
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