Haleets (also called Figurehead Rock) is a sandstone

glacial erratic A glacial erratic is glacially deposited rock differing from the type of rock native to the area in which it rests. Erratics, which take their name from the Latin word ' ("to wander"), are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundred ...

boulder with inscribed

petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

s on

Bainbridge Island, Washington Bainbridge Island is a city and island in Kitsap County, Washington. It is located in Puget Sound. The population was 23,025 at the 2010 census and an estimated 25,298 in 2019, making Bainbridge Island the second largest city in Kitsap County. ...

. The Native American

Suquamish Tribe The Suquamish () are a Lushootseed-speaking Native American people, located in present-day Washington in the United States. They are a southern Coast Salish people. Today, most Suquamish people are enrolled in the federally recognized Suquami ...

claims the rock, on a public beach at Agate Point on the shore of

Agate Passage Agate Pass or Agate Passage is a high-current tidal strait in Puget Sound connecting Port Madison and mainland Kitsap County in the US state of Washington. It lies between Bainbridge Island and the mainland of the Kitsap Peninsula near Suquamish. ...

, as part of their heritage. The exact date the petroglyphs were carved is unknown but is estimated to be around 1000 BCE to 400 or 500 CE, the latest date being when

labret A labret is a form of body piercing. Taken literally, it is any type of adornment that is attached to the lip (labrum). However, the term usually refers to a piercing that is below the bottom lip, above the chin. It is sometimes referred to as a ...

s (worn by one of the petroglyph figures) were no longer used by

Coast Salish The Coast Salish is a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak one of the Coas ...

peoples. Haleets is the

name of the rock, also transcribed as Halelos, Xalelos and Xalilc, meaning "marked face". It is known in English as Figurehead Rock. Its purpose is unknown but the

Suquamish Museum The Suquamish Museum preserves and displays relics and records related to the Suquamish Tribe, including artifacts from the Old Man House and the Baba'kwob site. It is located on the Port Madison Indian Reservation in Washington state and was foun ...

curator and archivist Charlie Sigo has stated that it may have been a boundary marker. An

amateur astronomer Amateur astronomy is a hobby where participants enjoy observing or imaging celestial objects in the sky using the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes. Even though scientific research may not be their primary goal, some amateur astronomers m ...

has proposed a theory that it has a calendrical function (see

Archaeoastronomy Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cultur ...

Haleets petroglyph rock and Glacier Peak

The rock is tall and long. It sits about offshore, and has been marked with chiseled and drilled Coast Survey features since 1856, and a bronze

geodetic mark Survey markers, also called survey marks, survey monuments, or geodetic marks, are objects placed to mark key survey points on the Earth's surface. They are used in geodetic and land surveying. A ''benchmark'' is a type of survey marker that i ...

was placed on it in 1934. Some sources say that the rock is one of three prominent Salish Sea petroglyphs that were always on the shoreline, but tectonic activity around the

Seattle Fault The Seattle Fault is a zone of multiple shallow east–west thrust faults that cross the Puget Sound Lowland and through Seattle (in the U.S. state of Washington) in the vicinity of Interstate Highway 90. The Seattle Fault was first recognized as ...

may have put Haleets in the intertidal zone.

Footnotes

References

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External links

* Petroglyphs in Washington (state) Glacial erratics of Washington (state) Bainbridge Island, Washington Coast Salish art Archaeoastronomy Individual rocks {{KitsapCountyWA-geo-stub