Monday, January 11, 2010

Zoo Rock, Bhimbetka

The most famous cave or monument in Bhimbetka is Zoo Rock which is around 10000 years old. The paintings here are primarily in white color and few are in red color. These paintings depict most of the animals like bison, deer, elephant, horses.

There are scenes depicting community living, with groups of people dancing, drinking, playing musical instruments.

There are also figures depicting war scenes with people on horses. They may be king and his soldiers. The king can be differentiated from the soldiers by the decoration on the horse and sometimes an umbrella above his head. You can see the swords and other weapons used in warfare then.

Most of the paintings are on the ceilings of the cave. The paintings on the outer edges are lighter than the ones away from the edges as the water could not reach the paintings that are in the inner circle.

53 comments:

Unspoken said...

Too see that with your own eyes! I have only seen it in pictures!

Julie ScottsdaleDailyPhoto.com said...

very interesting. I am always interested in petroglyphs and cave paintings from the past. thanks!

Bhavesh Chhatbar said...

What an amazement Rajesh. I couldn't imagine all this being from more than 10000 years back! How must it have been then?!! The kings, the troops, the dance, the groups, etc. mentioned by you are amazing to know as they relate to such an ancient time!!!

Rays of Hope

joo said...

You always manage to find such interesting places - thanks for sharing!
Have a great week:)

Zuzana said...

It is amazing that even the prehistoric man loved to create art.;) Beautiful, rare and very original pictures.
Zuzana

Lowell said...

These paintings are not only fascinating but very well done. The ability of these ancients is amazing! And they did it without computers!

Urmi said...

Wish you and your family a very happy and prosperous new year.
I appreciate for your wonderful post with lovely pictures.

eileeninmd said...

What a cool photo, of the cave paintings. It must be a very special place.

Carver said...

Old scenes like that are so amazing to me. Great shots.

Sylvia K said...

What a terrific, interesting post, Rajesh! Love your photos and I did enlarge them -- the drawings are amazing! Have a great week!

Sylvia

Anonymous said...

It is amazing, how same kind these ancient paintings are in different parts of this world, even we have those red animal paintings in our rocks, they are bears and elks here.
It makes an imagination really work.
thank you for this post about your world!

Photo Cache said...

It's amazing how much of it is still around. It looks like the Indian govt is doing a fabulous job preserving the writings.

I have posted my world at http://ewok1993.wordpress.com

Jossie said...

Interesting post and great pictures.

Samson said...

10000 yrs old WOW that very old... nice post Rajesh

ninja said...

My head spins from all the zero's. What a rich history.

Erin said...

the cave paintings are wonderful rajesh. enjoyed learning more about your world...always a pleasure to visit your blog.
have a wonderful week.

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Rajesh: Amazing when you think of the age of the markings. That is quite the find, Thanks for sharing with My World.

myonlyphoto said...

Thanks for sharing this beautiful art work from Zoo Rock. Hope all is well, and happy New Year. Anna :)

Janie said...

It's always fascinating to see the work of much older cultures.
Zoo Rock reminds me of some of the rock panel art drawn by Native Americans a thousand or more years ago.

Mark Kreider said...

I wonder why I never had the thought that there would be cave paintings in India? How ignorant of me... all people are basically alike in their wish to express themselves. Beautifully done!

Unknown said...

Rajesh, the paintings are amazing. Do you know what was use to paint?

Tammie Lee said...

I love cave art, thank you for sharing these!

eden said...

Beautiful paintings and interesting..

have a nice day

Ebie said...

This is truly an amazing work of art. And inside the cave at that. And full of history too!
Very impressive post!

Indrani said...

The oldest I have ever seen , that too in pics. Hope to see in real soon.

Unspoken said...

You leave me the kindest comments. Thank you, truly!
Amy

LadyFi said...

I love the fact that these paintings are still around - so much history!

Wolynski said...

When was this created? These people drew better on stone than I do on paper - really beautiful. Amazing how things last.

Anya said...

Wow!!!
Amazing place very special :-)

Leora said...

Thank you for these paintings from so long ago. "dancing, drinking, playing musical instruments" - I'm glad they had that in addition to the warfare.

aspiritofsimplicity said...

You always have such interesting places to visit.

Diane AZ said...

Fascinating cave paintings, looks like an amazing place to visit!

Sahildeki Ev said...

Wonderful post I love rock paintings.

Gwendolyn L said...

This is a very interesting post - both the picture and the history information are great! Thanks for sharing.

radha said...

The enlarged photo shows the details. Really amazing. Is this a Heritage Site and I hope they are carrying out restoration work here and keeping the structure intact.

fufu said...

10000 years old? wow cant wait to fly there and see it myself :)

SandyCarlson said...

Extraordinary, epic artwork. Thanks.

George said...

It must be absolutely amazing to see these in person. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Lianne said...

amazing! i hope to see those things up close and personal one day :)

leethroughthelens.blogspot.com

Abhilash said...

Hey thanks for the comments on the post. The cake paintings look nice. A nice picturization of olden days.

Reader Wil said...

Beautiful and very lively scenes on the caves drawings! I love those ancient paintings. Thanks for sharing them.

jabblog said...

It's almost unbelievable to think these paintings are so old. The people who first discovered them must have been so thrilled.

Victoria Tsavdaridou said...

Amazing paintings!!! You are very lucky to be there. Thanks for sharing

shruthi said...

i saw these types of cave art only in movies and cartoons..... its the first time i m seeing a pic of it....

its nice.... hope to c more....

and, thanks for stopping by my art blog

shruthi said...

whr is this place?

Unknown said...

How amazing that these were created so long ago and they have survived until today!

Ramakrishnan said...

Amazing, awesome and ancient !

joshi daniel said...

those looks like some really cool paintings!

Anonymous said...

that is really very impressive

Neelima Vallangi said...

Interesting post! I never heard of these caves before. Checked out the other posts as well.
Thanks for the info! :)

Sara Chapman in Seattle, USA said...

Fascinating. To think that an artist lived and drew so long ago, and we look at his or her work today.

Rajesh said...

Sara: Thanks for the appreciation.

Purba said...

The detailing in the paintings is amazing and loved the colour tones.