On our way to Bhopal,
we stopped by at a very interesting site called Bhimbetka. Here you find large rock shelters that have
paintings that date back to thousands of years depicting the life of the people
through different eras. This has been
now declared as UNESCO world heritage site.
At some shelters, it
was easy to walk because of the wooden flooring installed there. Here is where
I could comfortably walk, without loosing my balance and could scrutinise the
paintings done on the inner flat walls that served as canvas. There were no engraving in this region. The
paintings are made from three different techniques. Transparent technique, opaque technique and
crayons technique.
There were sign boards at
regular distances that gave some information that helped us understand what we
were to see.
One board read
You will see 15 rock shelters occupied by the early man and the life depicted in paintings. The habitation deposit emerge the cultural sequence from lower palacolithic to Meslithitic, you will find in the trenches of the shelter 1 and 2 have some cupules made on huge rock on the western end, considered by some scholars as the man’s earliest manifestation of creativity, prohably associated with one lakh years before. An elaborately painted shelter 4 known as zoo rock comprised 252 animals of 16 different species, from here walking towards north one can enjoy the watershed of Betwa river and natural ambience. Noticing many painted rock shelters, you will see the rock shelter no 15. Here an amazing scene of giant mythical animal chasing a human, painted with ochre color, can be seen on the upper surface of the rock shelter. You may here experience natural geological formation, various shaped rocks and other painted rock shelters. And their natural envirnoment including flora and fauna. Watching all these you will walk 1400 meters
Of course, I did not
walk all the 15 rock shelters, because the path at some places was quite tricky.
But it was interesting to see the drawing done on the walls
What was remarkable
about this site was the paintings are done with mineral colors. mainly ochre and
white on huge natural rocks of sandstone by people from different era. There
are hunting scenes, battle scenes, different animals, birds, hunting tools
flora and fauna of that era painted over different generation and still very
clearly visible.
Besides, the caves also
has a number of cupules depressions on stone, which are the man’s earliest
manifestation of creativity, probably associated with lower paleolithic period.
One big rock had caved
in and stone sculptures are carved out of imagination about how people must
have spent their time..man painting on the rock and woman mixing paint while
child waits for attention..
There are over 700 rock
shelters in this region...as for me..I visited the site that had 15 rock
shelters and I just saw few because of shortage of time. But i enjoyed sitting
on smooth black rock admiring the panoramic view of the landscape surrounding the
rocks.
--> To be continued……
