The earliest known works of representational art are stone carvings. Often marks carved into rock or petroglyphs will survive where painted work will not. Prehistoric Venus figurines such as the Venus of Berekhat Ram may be as old as 250,000 years, and are carved in stones such as tuff and limestone.

The Stone Carvers Guild is a group of independent working professional carvers based throughout the United States. We are working to ensure that carved stone will continue to play an important role in our built environment throughout the 21st century and beyond. Click on the map to find a stone carver near you!

Petroglyphs are rock carvings (rock paintings are called pictographs) made by pecking directly on the rock surface using a stone chisel and a hammerstone. When the desert varnish (or patina) on the surface of the rock was chipped off, the lighter rock underneath was exposed, creating the petroglyph.

Petroglyphs (also called rock engravings) are perhaps the earliest form: images created by removing part of a rock surface which remains in situ, by incising, pecking, carving, and abrading. Rock reliefs, carved into "living" rock, are a more advanced stage of this.