World's
longest rock art chain in Vindhyas
T S Sreenivasa Raghavan
[
6 Jan, 2007 0107hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
CHENNAI: After Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh is poised to claim yet
another world record in rock art this time, for the longest
chain of rock art.
The
12-km-long site, with most of its petroglyphs or pre-historic
rock carvings intact, has been discovered in Mandsaur district
of Malwa region, which is also home to Bhimbetka, the UNESCO world
heritage site, 45 km south of Bhopal.
The
Rock Arts Society of India (RASI), which knew about the existence
of the site for sometime, has now gone official saying the site
in the Vindhyan tableland, a plateau lying north of the central
part of the Vindhya range, is indeed the "longest chain of
rock arts in the world".
"Nowhere
in the world has anybody come across such an extensive chain of
rock arts with little interruption. What's exciting is most petroglyphs
are intact," internationally acclaimed paleontologist and
former RASI secretary G L Badam told TOI.
The
site is situated inside dense forests, 35 km from Bhanpura town,
about 350 km from Bhopal. Earliest carvings in the chain are mostly
of animals like rhino, nilgai , bear, panther, elephant, monkey,
turtle and crocodile. But there are also pictures of cow, bull,
buffalo, pig and horse.
Experts
have called the discovery of the Bhanpura rock arts as "an
important milestone in the history of anthropology". "The
presence of a variety of rituals, processions and fighting scenes
goes to prove the continuity of the art and early man's culmination
into community living," said Badam.
RASI
officials have already pitched for National Park status to the
Vindhyan rock-shelters.
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