 |
| Isco Rock Shelter |
The prehistoric rock art of Hazaribagh is painted in some fourteen sandstone rock shelters in the hills of Sati, Mahadeva (Mahudi) and Satpahar Ranges Upper Damodar Valley Central India . The oldest level of rockart I have found to be in Saraiya in the Satpahar Range
Sites: Isco, Thethangi, Saraiya, Satpahar I,II, & III, Khandar, Raham, Sidpa, Gonda, Nautangwa.& Rockart Puja
ISCO Village and Rockart
The village of Isco is a gift of time to India. In the north-eastern most corner of the valley it sits in the armpit formed by the Hazaribagh plateau and the Sati Range below the villages of Saheda and Chapri high up above on the plateau. Densely forested and temporarily inaccessible this picturesque village and its Munda tribal inhabitants face eviction by the Rautpara mine. The vast, gentle rice fields rolling for dozens of miles between forest lake and soaring saal trees will be gouged to a depth of three hundred feet to create an image from Dante's Inferno. Isco contains Lower Paleolithic deposits and deep underground caves inhabited by man during the ice ages, leaving for us one of the richest collection of Middle Paleolithic stone tool industry in South Asia. It should have been a World Heritage site, and this has been said again and again by India's leading archaeologists apart from myself. The Acheulian hand axes were picked up from the bed of the river of Isco which flows through the Marwateri cave. Borers, scrapers, strippers and hammer stones have been collected in large numbers in the cave and its surrounds. The deposit was officially certified by the prehistory department of the Archaeological Survey of India (S.B.Ota,l995).About one kilometer to the southwest of the Marwateri cave is the famous Isco rock paintings brought to international attention by me in l991.Over one hundred feet in length this mammoth rock art ( 15 'x 18.7'; 15' x 14.10' ; 15' x 16.10' ; 15' x 8.10'), in four separate interconnected sections resembling the hook of a cobra is called kohbara by the local Munda tribals and Oraon tribals whose mud houses come right up to within a few hundred yards of it. Located deep in a cleft of a sandstone sheet several hundred yards wide and over a kilometer in length the khovar divides the jungle from the village. The rock art has been dated by the leading expert on India's prehistoric rock art, Dr. Erwin Neumayer of Vienna, to the meso-chalcolithic period or in his dating as I understand it, the period between the appearance of microliths technology on the one hand and the appearance of copper on the other, so it is anywhere between 7,000 and 4000 BC.
There are paintings of deer, wild cattle, human figures and anthropomorphs in red haematite. It is a Meso-Chalcolithic rockart with animal and geometric forms painted with haematite (iron oxide). The motifs found in the rockart are also in evidence in the contemporary vernacular art of the region.
THETHANGI ROCK-ART
A continuous chain of Mesolithic rockart adorns the
walls of the North Karanpura
rift valley, interspersed in the beautiful garment of the perfumed brilliant
white Bridal Bouquet creeper which flowers throughout the winter months. As
noted, these sites were brought to light over successive years, beginning with
the Isco rock art in l99l. Today they are a well established gallery of prehistoric
rock art of India,
with the additional dimension of a Paleolithic base on one side, evidence of
continuous civilization and a continuing mural painting tradition by the
Adivasi villagers on the other side. The Sat-pahar consists of a series of
seven triadic ranges in a complex forming its own basins and stream valleys,
upon the tops of whose ranges, in the flanks of whose valleys, are found the
fantastic rockart of a glacial period painted in red hematite and yellow
lignite, for both of which the range is famed. Both the Thethangi (15x15, 15 x
10, 15 x 15 ), and Sariya ( 5' x 8')rockart face south. The rock art covers a
large grey sandstone expanse over fifty feet long and thirty feet high which is
painted with zoomorphs, anthropomorphs, geometrical designs in boxes, very
realistically painted spotted deer (Axis axis), mandalas, cattle,
and ritually arranged frogs. Both the Thethangi and Sariya rock art caves are
very threatened by the coal expansion project to the base of the hill. The site
has yielded a wide array of stone tools, flakes, microliths, borers, strippers
and hand-axes.
SARIYA ROCK-ART
Discovered by Erwin Neumayer in l994, this is the most
picturesque of our rock art sites (5' x 8'). Perched 3,000 feet high on an
eerie overlooking the bifurcation of the new railway line being built from
McCluskiegunj to Mangardaha washery, the site is precipitous in the extreme,
with a clear view to the west as far as the Sone river a hundred kilometers
distant. This is by far the oldest rockart in the entire region, believed to be
around l5,000 BC It has the first horned deity, shamanistic figures with sacred
tasseled barbs, geometric upright fish, much later to appear in Indus
and Susa
--- and ritual frogs, deer, grasshopper, votive pyramid, and fishes and small
running animals resembling rodents.
GONDA
This is a new rock art site recently brought to light
by Neeraj Vagholikar. It contains deer and elephant drawings. Illustrated is
the head of a stag from the rock art.
KHANDAR ROCK-ART
Khandar ( 8 x 15, 6 x 15) is a beautiful, small,
precious rock art site about three kilometers along the side of the range
towards the western end of the range. It is on a high level of a side stream
gorge emerging from the Satpahars. It was visited by Erwin Neumayer and he drew
my attention to a beautiful butterfly, according to him the only butterfly in
Indian rock art . Also depicted is a uniquely Australian Aboriginal type of
honey-bags hive, a bush-bag Mandala, honey hive, gourd flask, deer, and hunter
with bow, throwing-sticks, etc. The railway line that has reached Sariya will
go right past Khandar. From this beautiful elevation an unparalleled view of
the Latehar range is visible sixty kilometers to the southwest.
RAHAM & SIDPA ROCK-ART
On the opposite side of the Satpahar range, on its
north facing side, are three major rock art sites facing the triple threats of
a dam on the Tandwa river, the effects of the super thermal power project
coming in the are shortly, and the opening of the Magadh and Amrapalli mines
which we have collectively been able to hold up so far. Raham will stand along
the edge of the submergence zone, being the easternmost of the three sites. The
rockart of Raham is on a high perpendicular/vertical rectangular wall of
sandstone with wonderful boxed mandalas painted in red haematite. The cave was
believed to have been a refuge for the Tana Bhagats during the end of the
nineteenth century from which period some graffiti remains on the lower edges.
About six kilometers to the west is the Sidpa rock shelter with its enigmatic
drawings of deer and bull. Here is found a perfect tattoo design from the
meso-chalcolithic still in use in the women's body decoration in almost all the
tribes. This is a typical feature in dozens of rockart motifs being directly
related to art-forms such as mural painting, tattoo, metal casting, modeling,
weaving and basketry, pottery, carpentry, and other crafts still today being
practiced in the valley.
SATPAHAR ROCK-ART
Satpahar-IIn a row, on the east-west ridge of the Satpahar massif are these three unparalleled rock art sites set amidst lush forests of pristine saal, set on huge, vertical walls of sandstone, so perfect in their setting that they seem for all the world as if they were erected for this express purpose ! The first is Satpahar-I, (6 x 12 ), which is in the southern end and on a high clear sandstone wall towering over its own huge sandstone foundation in a vast stone expanse measuring six by twelve feet presents us with the only examples of deer with bandaged feet which according to Erwin Neumayer is a sign the art was painted during an ice age ( l0,000 BC) and also having a bison with X-ray, and deer painted in the almost identical style as in the Likhanya rock art of the Kaimur range of Mirzapur.
Satpahar-II
Slightly removed and on the west facing slope of the
hill, we find Satpahar-II (3.6' x 14') in its wide berth of sandstone, sitting
sheltered for aeons from wind and rain, and the sweeping dust-storms of the
summer through the valley, sheltered by the thick saal foliage. Here we find a
hunter's paradise: a string of animals from right to left a pair of huge humped
bison or gaur, a pair of nilgai or bluebull, a type of Indian antelope;
a pair of tigers, the male behind accompanied by three wild boar; then a langur
monkey facing a pair of hunters with bows and arrows, one hunter shown in its
stomach (!); a wild buffalo, and a horned rhinoceros, with some more figures of
x-ray animals.
Satpahar-III
(7' x 10') is famed for possessing perhaps the oldest crucifix form (Great One) set over a double line of racing spotted deer.
Satpahar-III
(7' x 10') is famed for possessing perhaps the oldest crucifix form (Great One) set over a double line of racing spotted deer.
NAUTANGUA ROCK-ART
The
Nautangwa Pahar rockart was discovered by Neelima and Jason on 20th November
200l. The site is located on the Mahadeva or Mohudi
Range of the upper Damodar valley in
Hazaribagh. In my opinion this cave shelter offers the finest animal forms (I
believe from the Paleolithic period) as yet found in the prehistoric rockart of
the Hazaribagh region as yet discovered. It is painted in red haematite colour
on grey sandstone rock across a long gallery high on a mountainside with scenic
view of the surrounding hilly countryside. The animal figures are very large
and some measure several feet across. It is believed that these animal forms
belong to a Paleolithic level of art, while the second level infilled with
white depicting stick-figures and mandalas are believed to be of a more
recent date. Nautangwa-II has three hand stampings which are painted and filled
in with lines. There is a line of deer’s too painted in while line drawings.
Would have been better if all these individual sites were attached with their images.
ReplyDeleteAll the very best!