Imagine being transported back 5,000 years, with a Passamaquoddy historian as your guide. This auction item will give a small group that experience, through viewing one of the most sacred and well-documented sites of ancient petroglyphs on the eastern seaboard. Believed to have been made by shamans, the petroglyphs date back at least 3,000 to 5,000 years.

Donald Soctomah, Passamaquoddy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, will lead a group of 4 - 6 people to view the Picture Rocks on a date and time to be mutually agreed, in August or September 2011.

The Picture Rocks were the subject of a 2006 gathering of women artists and girls who tried to capture the beauty and power of the petroglyphs in visual, tactile, oral, and written works, called “The Equinox Project.” This auction item includes the Abbe Museum catalog from that show.

Finally, this auction item includes a print of the painting for the Equinox Project by Ann Gommers:  “Vortex.” In the artist’s words:

“...According to Passamaquoddy legend, upon death we move towards Great Spirit with lightening speed, it is this speed and pull I attempt to depict. I believe my Passamaquoddy ancestry helps me “see” animals and spirits in clouds, tree trunks and rocks...”

"Vortex," by Ann Gommers