Petroglyphs similar to the ones at Reef Bay have been found at other former Taino settlements in Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and on various other islands throughout the West Indies. Archeologist Ken Wild "points to a bat motif found on many Taino artifacts, and historians have learned from the writings of the early Spanish chroniclers, who met the Taino, that the bat was an important religious symbol" (qtd. in Hayward, Atkinson, and Cinquino 132). Furthermore, Wild asserts that "what appears to be bat noses on a human faces can be seen on some petroglyphs" (133). Moreover, he states that "a characteristic of Taino society was their propensity to carve pictographs around freshwater pools, along streams and rivers, on rocks found in caves, on coastlines, and at ceremonial sites such as ball courts" (qtd. in Singer 102). Petroglyphs are often found in areas frequented by bats such as water sources and caves.
The following excerpt from Singer’s book discusses the many theories on the origins of the petroglyphs:One hypothesis is that Africans carved the petroglyphs. In 1971 the visiting ambassador from Ghana noticed a striking similarity of one of the pictographs to an Ashanti symbol that means, “accept God”.
Going further afield is the research of the eminent cryptographer, Dr. Barry Fell, who identifies the petroglyphs as being similar to “the Tifinag branch of a medieval Libyan script ... used by multi-racial peoples in South East Libya as well as by black Africans in the Sahara and the Sudan.”
According to Dr. Fell the petroglyphs are “script reflected and inverted in the mirror of the water” and would be translated into Modern English as “Plunge in to cleanse and dissolve away impurity and trouble; this is water for ritual ablution before devotions.” (103)
.jpg)
However, given the overwhelming historical and archeological evidence, the vast majority of archeologists, historians, anthropologists and ethnologists have concluded that it was the Tainos who carved the petroglyphs in Reef Bay(Singer 101-102).
