Archaeology
Rock art sites of India
India has about 5,000 rock art sites, next only to Australia and South Africa, where prehistoric people have recorded life as they saw it, in paintings, engravings and carvings. Finding and decoding this artistic “perception of reality” is a challenge for rock art hunters.
Two big deer painted in red ochre colour. Under the belly of the deer standing in front are people who are dancing. This painting dates to the Mesolithic period (c. 10000 BCE to 3000 BCE) and was discovered in a rock shelter at Pandavulagutta in Warangal district, which is now in Telangana.Photo: N. Chandramouli
Paintings in the rock shelters at Bhimbetka, a World Heritage site in Madhya Pradesh. They are spread across a sprawling hillock on the foothills of the Vindhyas on the southern edge of the central Indian plateau. The rock paintings here have defied the vagaries of time and reflect the rhythm of life dating back almost 10,000 years. They show how hunting parties armed with spears, shields, bows and arrows rode their horses and how there was time to celebrate, with the whole community dancing to drumbeats.Photo: The Hindu Archives
At Chaturbhujnath Nala, this painting done in red ochre from the top angle shows two men riding a chariot drawn by two horses. A big man walking behind the chariot is holding a flambeau, and one of the men in the chariot has an axe-like weapon. The presence of horses and the chariot shows that it is from the Early Historic period.Photo: Arti Sharma
The rock art specialist K.T. Gandhirajan points to a petroglyph in a hamlet near Kallampalayam in the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu. He says it relates to astronomy and is one of its kind. It has a big circle, in the middle of which is a small circle that has eight circles around it. He dates it to the Megalithic Age and conjectures that the small circle in the middle represents the sun and the circles around it celestial bodies. Also seen are spur-like projections a little above the base on either side of the outermost circle.Photo: By Special Arrangement
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