Prehistoric rock paintings tell tales of the past

The wonders of lives once lived, the mysteries of humankind\’s past dating back 15,000 years or more… some of those mysteries have been uncovered in central India with amateur explorers stumbling upon a series of rock paintings hidden away for centuries.

Untouched by the vagaries of time, the red is still vibrant as are the greens and the yellows as they unfold tableaux from the distant past. Did you know, for instance, that the sivatherium, a giraffe-like creature with two pairs of horns and extinct for 8,000 years, once roamed central and western India. Or that the aardvark, an ant-eating creature now found only in Africa, was also found in India.

While a majority of the paintings are of animals like sivatherium, aardvark and rhinoceros, there are also images of elephants, giraffes, tigers, lions, leopards, bears, wild boars, wild dogs, swamp deer, spotted deer, sambhar, horses and camels.

Only one bird is visible in the paintings - the vulture. There is also one painting of a large tortoise. Below most walls, there are small holes in the floor with the paint remnants indicating these were the \’dishes\’ in which colours were made.

The stunning finds from the ancient paintings in 18 rock shelters near Amravati in the Indian state of Maharashtra have been discovered by a group of amateur explorers in the past three years - the latest find was in June.

A six-member group headed by V.T. Ingole, who is otherwise the principal of an engineering college in Amravati, chanced upon the paintings after seven years of digging in the Morshi tehsil of Amravati district.

\”This is only the second of its kind in the country and dates back to 15,000 years or the Upper Palaeolithic era,\” an excited Ingole told IANS.

The discoveries were submitted to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Rock Art Society of India, Agra, which conducted research and confirmed the unique findings.

The band of intrepid explorers are, barring one, in their late 50s and early 60s. They hit upon the first cave Jan 26, 2006 in the border area of the two states of Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh that makes up the Tapti Valley.

\”The find was as amazing as it was significant. It sparked new life into our efforts and spurred us to keep going. Till June this year, we managed to discover a total of 65 caves in that area, including 18 rock shelter paintings,\” said Ingole.

Prior to this, the only similar rock shelter paintings were found at Bhimbetka near Bhopal in 1957.

Pradeep S. Hirurkar, a state government employee who turns explorer over the weekend, describes the Amravati findings as breathtaking.

Hirurkar said they got the first tip-off from the Gond tribals in the region, but since they were in the deep forests and high hills - between 350 and 900 metres - the area was very difficult to access.

Hirurkar said it is amazing that people in those days who were barely known to travel a few kilometres from their dwellings had seen camels or rhinos.

At a height of around five feet from the ground, most of the animals are painted in different shades of red derived from iron ore, juices of fruits, leaves and roots from the jungles around.

The paintings are mostly in dimensions of 10-20 cm, though there is one figure of a 1.5-metre tall nude man with prominent genitals.

\”A majority of the figures are facing the right, indicating that the painters were left-handed. It is possible that in those prehistoric days, the left hand was used as equally as the right hand,\” Ingole explained.

At one large rock shelter, there are as many as 35 paintings of different creatures while the rest have between two to five figures.

In one rock shelter painting believed to be around 5,000 years old, there are additional colours used to depict different pictures.

\”The colours include green, yellow, white, grey - all of which are made with locally available raw materials. One cave shows figures of humans astride an elephant, a camel and horses, in war gear, holding spears.

\”This indicates they had succeeded in taming these large wild creatures as far back as 3,000 years BC. The camel also proves some kind of contact with the people in Rajasthan or beyond since these animals are not found in this region,\” Ingole explained.

Though Ingole\’s team has found these rock shelter paintings in an excellent condition, they are apprehensive whether these will be preserved for posterity.

\”We have somehow succeeded in bringing this treasure of humanity before the world,\” Ingole said.

It now needs to be preserved for future