Comparison of prehistoric paintings

The key to understanding any people is in its art: its writing, painting, sculpture.― Louis L'Amour, Education of a Wandering Man

Its true that art reveals a community's culture. Culture and art go hand in hand, they have evolved together. The human mind, the ever thinking machine, with its audio-visual inputs, churned out what we call art.. drawings, paintings, sculptures, music, dance, literature and what not. Humans imitated Nature with a twist of imagination and created beautiful things. Here's a quote by a Colombian artist named Fernando Botero: A painted landscape is always more beautiful than a real one, because there's more there. Everything is more sensual, and one takes refuge in its beauty. And man needs spiritual expression and nourishing. It's why even in the prehistoric era, people would scrawl pictures of bison on the walls of caves. Man needs music, literature, and painting-all those oases of perfection that make up art-to compensate for the rudeness and materialism of life.

I'm trying to imagine how paintings evolved.. humans must have drawn on sand or dirt using their fingers or twigs or stones. Probably random lines and curves in the beginning. Plants and hills might have been next because they were stationary. So man learns to draw leaves and flowers. Then came human themselves because they lived together. Humans drew individual humans, then couples, and groups. Then came animals pictures.. the animal figures had to be remembered and then drawn.. not as easy as plants or human. Sand drawings would fade out soon. Some one tried drawing with animal blood on a rock with fingers.. blood dried up and remained on stone for longer time. Or some herbs or minerals were discovered whose color was similar to blood. The ever thinking human mind experimented with blood, herbs pigment and minerals pigment, did some mixing and discovered paint. On the other hand, man found better ways to apply paint.. they must have tried feathers, twigs, leaves, animal hair among other things. With passing of time, rock painting became prehistoric diaries. A tribute to some brave huntsman or a warrior or in memory of a dance ritual. Humans had reared cattle and hunting dogs, they must have drawn pictures of the largest bull or the most shrewd canine... So here we have a painting of oxen, dogs and a bird too.

Onake Kindi near Anegundi - oxen and dogs

The first four pictures are all from Onake Kindi, a rock fort created by Mother Nature. Onake Kindi is near Anegundi, the place with a very long history. At the spot are several paintings of human figures, oxen, dogs, birds, a large serpent, a tiger, a hunting scene showing men on horse back, a life-size anthropomorphic painting and a diagram which I'm yet to understand.

Onake Kindi near Anegundi - unknown

Artists who had painted these not only knew how to draw but also knew how to prepare the stone surface and how to prepare the paint itself. Drawing on a horizontal surface is one thing but drawing on a vertical surface is something else. The liquid had to be a particular viscosity so that we wouldn't run off. We found a small pit in one of the rocks close by which might have been used to crush all the ingredients to obtain a consistent fluid. Probably some shells were used to carry paint from here to the canvas.

paint bowl

As you see these drawings are made of fine lines. Especially the oxen's horns in the first picture. The artists has a fine hand but the paint brush had to be convenient too. I guess paintings were made during a certain time of year.. when the air had the right balance of moisture in it at the right temperature so that the liquid dries over certain period of time. If the paint dries too quickly it might turn brittle and crumble. So humans understood the chemistry and physics of paints. 

Onake Kindi near Anegundi - tiger hunting

Here we have a unique painting. This life-size human figure is painted on the ceiling of a rock shelter. The rock is about 16' from the ground level. Wondering how the painter was positioned that high. Did the painter lie down on some sort of scaffolding? Coming to human figure, why are its arms disproportionate. There's a small bull close to his feet. Does this painting depict some sort of gigantic figure?  

Onake Kindi near Anegundi - anthropomorphic

During my journeys, I cam across six sites with ancient rock paintings spread around Bellary, Koppal, Raichur and Bagalkot. There are many more known sites and God knows how many unknown sites. Hampi is also known for rock paintings.

Here are paintings seen at other sites.. starting with Kutkankeri. The most predominant pattern seen here are zig-zag lines of the striped hyena which are local to this region. 

Kutkankeri - pattern of Indian striped hyena

Here's a lovely painting of a hyena. Kannada name for a hyena is Kattekirba. Katte means donkey; since hyena has large ears resembles donkey ears hence the name. Hyenas dwell in caverns and rock shelters which are plenty in rocky hills of Badami and surrounding area. Their dens usually stink because of their habit of feeding on highly decomposed carcasses.

Kutkankeri - Indian striped hyena

Close to the hyena is a human-like figure with slender limbs and giraffe like head. Does this depict some type of alien creature?

Kutkankeri - unknown creature resembling a human

On the same hill, at a different rock shelter are two small paintings. This is one of them. This seems like a battle scene; the two warriors are wielding swords and shields. The horse's features are nicely drawn- upright hair on its neck, its eye is clearly visible, its four legs, one of the fore legs hoof is predominant and its tail is long. Such a sweet little drawing. I have a feeling this has been created by a very young artists.. may be 8 or 9 year old.

Kutkankeri - battle scene

Next are small paintings we discovered at a rock shelter in Mudgal fort. The contrast between rock and paint is not much, hence they are barely visible.

rock shelter at Mudgal fort

Human figures and some geometric figures.

rock shelter at Mudgal fort - human forms

Gudekote is another historic spot with a shelters on its hills. One of the rock shelters close to the fort entrance has a large group of painting of human figures and few animals like oxen.

Gudekote hill

Gudekote hill - pair of oxen

Also, about 4 kms from Gudekote, right next to the road is a boulder with a small overhang. Under the overhang was a small painting. I think the rocky hills around Gudekote are many a rock shelters with rock paintings. It would be interesting to explore the hills & plains and see the paintings.

Next here are paintings of Beerappa Rock Shelter near Sanganakallu and Kappagallu villages of Bellary. This seems like a peacock. In fact one of the peaks of Hiregudda resembles a peacock head and its called Peacock hill. Probably the plains surrounding the hills were covered with woods, making it an ideal terrain for peacocks.

Beerappa Rock Shelter - Peacock

On the same rock is a creature with forked horns.. it has to be a deer. These paintings are at a height of 10' to 12' above the ground level. I remember there were images of fish as well.

Beerappa Rock Shelter - Deer

Now we are at the Chitra Gundu (picture boulder) of Hire Benekal hill. These drawings are slightly different.. human figures have long curvy arms. In fact this is one place I've seen a human couple, probably a married couple, leader of a group. The larger group of drawings shows scenes of hunting, men on horse back wielding spears.

Hire Benkal's  Chitra Gundu - hunting scenes

More four legged creatures.. ox and horses.

Hire Benkal's  Chitra Gundu - deer

All the while we saw humans, oxen, horses, dogs, peacock, serpent, and other creatures of our planet. Coming to the next set of paintings of Hiregudda of Badami.. these are completely different. The creatures seen here are similar but different. What seems like pigs, cows and humans are not exactly the ones we see now. These creature look outlandish.

Badami Hiregudda - strange looking animals

Then we have human like creatures but humans were never depicted this way in any of the scientific articles. Except for the structure of body, head and limbs, these creatures are completely different than the human figures of other sites. Humanoids from some other planet? Mars?

Badami Hiregudda - strange looking anthropomorphic figures

In fact the presence of this astronaut like creature gives a feeling these might be alien creatures. The objects behind the astronaut's head seems like a spaceship. Pretty mysterious set of paintings there are.

Badami Hiregudda - astronaut? 

One thing common in all these paintings is the color - ochre. Ochre, a shade of red. red is the most visible color, the color of blood, the color of life. These pictures, tell us stories, they give us a glimpse of past life, they have enough details for us to imagine how life might have been back then.

There are many more such sites.. places which I wish to visit, which I wish to discover.

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Prehistoric Artefacts

Between 2008 and 2014 my journeys touched some of the oldest inhabited places in Northern Karnataka. While most sites are on rocky hills, few are on plain land. The ones on rock hills had natural rock shelters.. homes of ancient people. Those ancient people left their marks in many forms.. right from dwellings to stones tools to stone drawings to music to inscriptions to anthropomorphic statues to tombs. In between is something which many today are not even aware of - stone alignments to predict seasons.. the ancient calendar system based on positions of shadows. There's one thing common in these all these artefacts one thing is common - stone. Here we go.. lets check out samples of the ancient artefacts..

Rock shelters and Cave dwellings
In the rock hills of Chitraduga, Bagalkot, Koppal, Bellary and Raichur are many a shelters in which ancient humans refuge from sun, rain and animals. Those shelters must have been occupied for generations. Yes, they lived free.. no rent or taxes to pay :) Of all rock shelters, the largest is know by the name Sidlaphadi. The word means lightning stone in Kannada.. however the name is given recently but for sure it was inhabited by humans several millennia ago. This picture below is Sidlaphadi, a bridge like rock formation. In the roof are three openings which are believed to be caused because of a massive lightning strike. This spot is situated in a depression on the plateau of Hiregudda (Big hill) of Badami. Besides this shelter, there are several smaller caves in the vicinity separated by plain land. During my visit I noticed one side of the cave's plains was sandy.. indication of flowing water. I looked for stone implements found none. Few kilometers from here is hill of Kutkankeri, a place of many shelters with rock paintings.

Stone tools
We have another hill called Hiregudda near Bellary. The hill has history dating back to Neolithic times, it was a tool manufacturing centre of that period. Even to this day we can find stone axes, spear-heads, pounding stones, and grinding stones. Our guide to Hiregudda is the one and only Rama Dasa of Sangankallu village which is approximately south-west of Hiregudda. On the northern-eastern side of the hill is another hill is Kappagallu; its name id derived from the dark colored dolerite dyke on the northern side of Hiregudda. During our second visit to Hiregudda, Ramadasa showed us the stone factory.. damaged & rejected stone implements and flakes formed during the process of manufacturing. Hiregudda is surrounded by vast plains of back soil. People back then practised agriculture and reared cattle. The stone tools manufactured here were also traded at Hiregudda, probably barter system had existed back then. Here are few pictures of ancient implements. In the bottom-right corner, Ramadasa was demonstrating how grains were ground into flour. The top-left picture is a grinding stone to sharpen axe heads. To read more about this visit open Prehistoric stone tools of Hiregudda.

One other place I'd seen stones which seemed like hand tools was in a riverbed next to Sonda fort.

Paintings on rocks
Now we are going to see the artistic side of ancient humans who at some point of time developed a delicate hands to create amazingly beautiful drawings of animals & birds including fish, humans, flowers, scenes of humans hunting wild beasts, group dances, battle scenes and abstract too. The paintings though mono-chrome have life to them, easily identifiable at the first glance. The largest collection of paintings were at Onake Kindi near Anegundi village, the city of ancient kingdom of Kishkinda. However the single largest painting depicting a hyena skin pattern was at Anepadi (meaning elephant stone) on the sandstone hill of Kutkankeri near Badami. Hire Benekal hill is better known for its megalithic tombs but it is said that hundreds of paintings could be found in the numerous rock shelters. Of all the paintings, the one near Ranganatha Swamy temple on Hiregudda of Badami is unique. The uniqueness is because of the fact that the animal and human forms seem unearthly.. they give a feeling they existed on a different planet. Personally I never felt such animals and human forms existed on Earth. Not just that, there are two drawings which are very much like an astronaut and a rocket in flight (see top-right picture). As you see the color used in all paintings is ochre, a shade of red

Petroglyphs
This is another form of drawings; stones scratched with stones. This is relatively rare to find,I've seen only two sites with ancient petroglyphs- Kappagallu and Maski. The name Kappagallu means dark stone in Kannada; the name has derived from the black igneous boulders of Hiregudda hill. On these rocks are hundreds of drawings of humans, animals & birds, and geometric figures. The most commonly seen animal is bull; one of the most lovely pictures is of a crane with a fish in its beak; and one a complex diagram of five pairs of bull & axe. The bull-axe-wheel has a deep meaning to it.. something which connects our earth with the space beyond the sky. In these pictures is Ramadasa, the person who knows Hiregudda by his heart. Maski in Raichur district is another place where I saw pictures of fish and elephants on a granite boulder.

Stone Alignment
This is something less known. Stones aligned in a huge matrix on plain land (spread over several acres) next to a twin peaked hill is one of the earliest known calendar system. The position of the peaks' shadow in the grid told what season it was. The only such alignment I've seen is at Vibuthihalli near Shahpur town in Karnataka.

Bell or Musical stones

Along with lovely sights, Nature produces captivating sounds... chirping birds, the sound of crashing waves, water gurgling through rocks.. well there's something else. Stones when struck produce clear sound.. like a bell. Through my journeys I've seen and heard four such rocks- two at Dolerite Dyke of Hiregudda and two at Mudgal fort. The top two pictures are from Hiregudda, these are igneous rocks. The bottom two are from Mudgal, a variety of granite local to that area. The bottom-right picture is a rock inside a natural shelter; that particular stone produces seven distinct notes... Sa Re Ga Ma... Amazing to hear the clear rings.. ting ting.

One another wondrous artefact is the kettle drum stone of Hire Benakal hill. This hemispherical stone is supposed to be created few thousand years ago. It is said that when the stone is struck with a wooden staff, it produces a booming sound which is audible as far as a kilometer! Well, I did not get a chance to check it out personally.. hoping the day comes.

Ash or Cinder Mounds
We all know ash is an end product of burning combustible material but here we are looking at rather big to gigantic ash mounds. In these ash mounds were found ancient artefacts like pottery pieces, grains, hair, bones, stone implements proving that they are ancient. Starting at top-right, going clock-wise direction- Hallur, Budihal, Kappagallu and Kudathini. Cinder mound of Hallur (Haveri district) is the largest covering approximately 30 acres and 30' high at places. Sadly this ancient monument is being actively destroyed by the village's own people. The next largest is at Kudathini. Kappagallu originally has three ash mounds however two have been flattened off by the land owner and one has survived the test of time. Lastly, Budihal ~ the name itself is derived from ashes. Budhi is the Kannada word for ash.

Anthropomorphic statues
These granite sheet cut-outs is another rare artefact. It is unclear as to what they represent.. are they deities or grave markers or a type of hero-stone? Whatever they are, they are clearly ancient and beautiful. These large human forms located on flat land between Kumathi and Valase villages in Bellary district. Locals call them Rakshahsagallu meaning demonic stones. Incidentally, about 3 kms away is a port-hole chamber megalithic tomb made of granite. Ramadasa remarked that the statue on right looks like a bird in flight. The other statue seems like Jesus in a lose robe.

Megalithic tombs
These is an interesting topic. Local people believe there structures made of dressed slabs were homes of ancient dwarf people. Archaeologists say these are ancient tombs. I've seen such tombs at five different sites- Hire Benakal, Aihole, Bachangudda, Kumathi, Rajan Kollur and Raap village next to Brahmagiri hill. I've also seen destroyed structures at Kutkankeri. Hire Benekal is the largest site, originally around 300 tombs, now around 100 can be seen. Structure heights vary from 1½ to 10 feet. Some of the tombs have port-holes. The lonely tomb of Kumathi is destroyed but the workmanship is good. The tombs of Raap village are destroyed completely, some ruins have been fenced off by ASI. Aihole and Rajan Kollur sites are more or less size same but the difference is while the former is on a hillock,, latter is in a gentle slope next to a stream. Tombs of these two seem primitive; rough cut red sandstone blocks have been used; again heights vary from 1½ to 6 feet. The group of tombs at Rajan Kollur has been researched by Philips Meadows Taylor way back in 1850. His book describes the structures in detail including a map showing the locations. The book also mentions tombs at Yeemigudda hill near Kanakagiri and Hegaratgi villages.

Similar tombs are also said to be found on Koppal hill and one near Mudabidri in western ghats. Neolithic culture had its own way of honouring their dead.

Cairns or Stone Circles

This is another type of grave markers. The only one I've seen until now is at the base of Hiregudda hill. Meadows Taylor has mentioned seeing several cairns in the Gulbarga, Raichur and Koppal districts.

Burial Urns
Terracotta burial urns can be seen at historical museums. Government Historical Museum at Bangalore and Museum at History Department of Karnatak University Dharwad have some good collection of burial urns and other clay-ware items like pots, plates, jars and jewellery too. The largest urn at Dharwad resembles a four legged creature.. like an ox or a horse. The museum's collections includes stone implements like axes, spear heads, sling balls, pounders and grinding stones.

..there's still lot to learn about our past.
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Prehistoric rock-paintings at Aihole

December 16, 2011
During the visit to Aihole's Jain Basadi, I had explored the rock formations looking for ancient rock art. I had seen a few lines in red color but I wan't sure if they were painted or stains caused by red mud. Here are the links to that image and post- http://goo.gl/IEE6Pt and http://goo.gl/Oa8n6v.

September 15, 2012
It was close to dusk when we arrived at Aihole. Light would fade quickly; we had to choose between search paintings or see megalithic tombs. We chose the prehistoric burial site. The following day we visited the museum at Badami. There I saw the picture of the same painting - that confirmed the presence of paintings at Aihole hill. My mind was made up to explore Aihole hill again.

August 31, 2013
Malatesh and I arrived at Aihole's Jain Basadi by 11-30 AM and set off exploring the sandstone rock formations. We looked for shelters and inspected the walls for paintings.

The first shelter: no paintings found here.

Meanwhile Malatesh had moved on to the neighboring shelter and called out to me - few paintings could be seen.

The rock formation is situated on a raised platform.

Its not a typical shelter, rather it is a gap between rocks from which water flows out during rainy season. The large boulder on the left has 3 separate paintings marked in blacl ovals A, B and C.

Starting with A, this painting in red color makes no sense to me.

We turn our attention to the painting marked B; this is much larger, a familiar pattern.

This painting is similar to few paintings of Kutkankeri, the pattern of Indian Hyena coat.

The third painting (marked C) is not very clear, the lines are blurred, paint spread out and faded too. Just outside the shelter on the floor was this small pit, perhaps this was used to grind material to produce the paint.

We move along the edge of the hill looking for more shelters.

We come the third shelter, though not a typical shelter, it does give shelter from late morning sun. The spot offers a clear view of the valley in which Malaprabha flows.

In this shelter are several individual paintings most of which made no sense to us.

Here's the painting seen during my 2011 visit. Also this painting can be seen at Badami and Aihole museums.

Here the surface has a coating of whitish material, it could be a base - I'm guessing. Again none of these paintings make any sense to us. Wonder if these are a bunch of incomplete work.

A thought - was this a place for beginners trying their hands at rock art?

The entire exercise took an hour. Breakfast was long gone and our tummies were growling. We decided to lunch under one of the overhangs. The first shelter had some level surface for three grownups. Though not very comfortable, we sat down. Lunch was our usual travel menu- jolada rotti, sprouts, cucumber, carrot, tomato, chatni and curd. This was our second lunch outing at a prehistoric site. On the floor of the shelter where we sat were two sets of pits, both in the form of rectangular  arrays (marked in black circles). We remember seeing such pits in temples and also at Hiregudda of Sanganakallu near Bellary. The pits might have been used to play some sort of a game.

After lunch we dozed for some time, the nap charged our batteries :)

I ws glad to have seen the paintings though we couldn't even guess what they depicted. At the back of the mind I knew there's more to Aihole than what we had seen. I've heard the existence of prehistoric stone circles (cairns) and  barrows. I hope to find them some day.

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