The ancient petroglyphs found at nine sites along Machias Bay, perhaps Washington County’s best-kept archaeological secret, are having their day in the sun.

A unique exhibit of surface rubbings showing the ancient designs chiseled into stone, some dating from 3,000 years ago, is on display at the art galleries at the University of Maine-Machias.

The exhibit, featuring the work of shamans, is being extended an additional three weeks to allow the community to learn more about the spiritual art.

A petroglyph is a carving or inscription on rock that offers clues to life before recorded history.

Mark Hedden, the state’s foremost authority on this rock art, provided more than 45 prints for the show. Ranging extensively in size and design, the prints were collected over his 25 years of study of the area. Until earlier this fall, they were stored mostly at his home near Augusta.

The petroglyphs “are perhaps the best dated series of rock art on the entire East Coast,” Hedden said during an interview earlier this week. “They don’t go back more than 3,000 years. But it’s a continuous sequence, which ends sometime in the 19th century.”

Hedden’s research – and the remnants of Maine’s American Indian past – has been gaining new audiences by the month since a group of UMM students in Bernie Vinzani’s course last summer uncovered a previously unrecorded petroglyph at the Machias Bay site.

The exhibit opened in November after Vinzani, a UMM art teacher and curator of the university’s galleries, conferred with Hedden on the students’ discovery. It was scheduled to close at the semester’s end, after Hedden made a three-day trip to the campus for lectures and talks about these little-known petroglyphs.

The exhibit has been extended through mid-January, however, for more of the community to visit, look and learn about the petroglyphs.

During a recent tour of the exhibit, Vinzani said that he knew that Hedden was the one to go to if an exhibit were to be done. He knew, too, that as the state university campus known for its environmental emphasis, UMM’s bringing the area’s petroglyphs to the campus and community was the least he could do.

Other petroglyph sites worldwide have had actual rocks removed to museums.

“That’s not what needs to happen here,” Vinzani said. “These stay where they are. We have recorded their prints out of a necessity to teach folks how to respect what they are.”

Vinzani didn’t undertake the project without reservations, he said. The art teacher consulted with several members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe about the appropriateness of making public such a sacred portion of their culture.

Encouraged by them, and discarding any thoughts that the exhibit would be exploitive, Vinzani went ahead with the work.

Before the exhibit was opened to the public, Passamaquoddy member Joe McLaughlin performed a purification ceremony for each of the rooms containing the prints.

“To me, these designs are remnants of ritual,” Vinzani said.

The exhibit is viewed in a clockwise direction, the UMM art teacher said, done intentionally for the sake of Passamaquoddy tradition. To move otherwise, he learned from one of his Passamaquoddy students, would be to enter the world of spirits.

The prints include forms of animals, humans and spirits. They are displayed from the oldest, which shows figures with birdlike heads and winglike arms, to those more historically recent depicting the arrival of European vessels to the area in the 1800s.

Hedden, who arrived at Machiasport to see the newly revealed petroglyph within a week of Vinzani’s call, believes the bay will ultimately reveal more petroglyphs that have not been recorded.

Hedden is semi-retired from his archeological work with the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. He calls the petroglyph sites at Machias Bay more significant than many students on campus can imagine.

There are only two other known petroglyph locations in Maine. One covers a ledge on the Kennebec River in Embden. Other carvings have been found on ledges along Grand Lake Stream.

The petroglyphs at Machias Bay, however, are more numerous than at the two other Maine sites combined. The petroglyphs, some still covered by seaweed, are best viewed at times of day when both light and tides are right.

Given the university’s proximity to the petroglyphs at Machias Bay, Hedden hinted Tuesday that much of the exhibit that fills two rooms at UMM may end up staying in the hands of the university.

“As long as Bernie is there, I feel quite confident that the prints would be taken care of,” Hedden said. “So we may keep them there.”

Better that the public see the prints than the actual petroglyphs, both Hedden and Vinzani concur.

“It is an incredible, sacred spot for humankind,” Vinzani said. “I treat it like I’d treat going into a cathedral in Europe.”

Visitors to the tidal flats are asked to remove their shoes and socks as they walk on the rocks. That’s done for the practical reason of keeping out the grit, but also to show respect for the Passamaquoddy past.

Those who know where the designs lie are fortunate to have been let in on the archeological secrets of the bay. Short of someone having an academic interest, there is little chance that the greater public will ever know where to find the carvings on their own.

“That is a deliberate policy on our part,” Hedden said of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. “We have no way to protect them. They are on shaled rock. If too many people walk over the surface, the images will be seriously affected.

“I have made one set of the surface prints. But I am not recommending that anybody else do it, because of the danger of losing what is there.”

Five of the sites are on private land, whose owners have allowed access to academics and the university. Three more sites are on land owned by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. The last site, Hedden said, falls on no man’s land.

Hedden’s work of late has involved trying to have the Machias Bay sites formally removed from any potential public development or destruction.

Already, Vinzani said, he has seen some damage from graffiti. Moreover, one careless boater has drilled a mooring right through one of the designs.

Petroglyphs are fascinating, Hedden said, because “you see the way people think.”

In the Machias Bay petroglyphs, the designs appear to be the work of shamans. These were spiritual leaders of tribes who gained authority from their abilities to contact the spirits through visions.

More Mainers will learn more about the treasures at Machias Bay this spring, when Hedden and his colleagues present a 45-minute film about the site.

Ray Gerber, a marine biologist at St. Joseph’s College in Standish, has worked with Hedden since the 1980s to shoot footage of the designs. Wayne Newell, a Passamaquoddy educator from Indian Township, has provided the film’s narration.

The film will likely be shown around the state, but its premiere is reserved for Calais, with the Passamaquoddy having a role in its presentation.

Mark Hedden’s surface prints of Machias Bay petroglyphs remain on display at UMM’s Powers Hall through Wednesday, Jan. 21. Gallery hours are in the afternoon or by appointment, 255-1279. Katherine Cassidy can be reached at 255-3324 or kcassidy@downeast.net.