In the late 1980s whilst cycling around his neighbourhood, Sudhir Risbud recalled seeing as a schoolboy a strange and enigmatic rock relief pattern just off the road near the village of Niwali, 15 km from Ratnagiri, Maharashtra. The mesmerising pattern caught his attention, with the strange geometric shapes, interlocking curls and concentric circles, and this relief seemingly cut short prematurely by the recent road construction. At the time he had absolutely no idea that what he was seeing was a prehistoric petroglyph, although he did know that the local tribal people identified it as a legacy from their ancestors and treated it with reverence In the following 25 years Sudhir and his colleagues identified more examples of these strange rock carvings, but it wasn’t until a historian accompanied them on one of their trips that they finally learned the significance of their discoveries. Six years later, and as of January 2019 there have been 52 confirmed and explored sites, and over 1,000 petroglyphs discovered. An ongoing project to visit local schools is underway, not just to learn of potential new sites, but also to educate the children on the significance of these petroglyphs and how they need to be identified, recorded and protected in the landscape. The majority of the petroglyph sites are in quite remote locations, away from villages on the laterite plateaux. They are believed to date to the mesolithic and neolithic period, potentially as far back as 10,000 B.C.E. However, the lack of material culture associated with these petroglyphs has thus far prevented us from making any firm conclusions. What struck me when visiting these sites is the huge variety of carvings they have. Some sites have clear and obvious depictions of animals such as elephant, rhino, buffalo, pig, tiger, deer, rabbit, varieties of bird, aquatic animals (fish, sharks, stingray), and humans – often life size, while other sites have abstract geometric patterns that are often incredibly complex and symmetrical. Some of the animals depicted have not roamed the Konkan for at least 10,000 years. #swiggywala @googlemaps #petroglypth #prehistoric #rockart #archaeology #maharashtra #konk https://www.instagram.com/p/CbpH2OXPXbL/?utm_medium=tumblr
