Painted Grotto is a cave perched high on the wall of Slaughter Canyon in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico, that shelters several hundred Mescalero Apache pictographs brushed across its walls and ceiling in earth-ground ochers of red, yellow, golden yellow, white and soft pink. The small ceremonial chamber lies about 4.5 miles from the mouth of West Slaughter Canyon, roughly 65 feet above the dry streambed, spanning about 57 feet across the front and extending 21 feet at its deepest point. Caves of this type served as shrines and settings for ceremony — places for dances, incantations, and other sacred observances — and remain deeply revered. The Painted Grotto is not open to the public. - AsNotedIn