Isco
Thethangi
Saraiya
Raham
Sidpa
Gonda
Nautangwa
Khandar
Satpahar |
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Discovered by Erwin Neumayer in l994, this is the most picturesque of our
rock art sites (5' x 8'). Perched 3,000 fet high on an eyrie 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 wewst as far as the Sone river a hundred kilometers distant.
One day my eldest son Justin and I were in the company of this great rock
art expert, when Erwin says to us, I bet there's a rock art site up there
! Astonished, I offered to bet him one rupee there wasn't. So off he goes
in his Alpine climbing boots with a wizened old tribal guide, and a couple
of hours later emerges --- thank God alive --- from the cave up there !
The only other person to visit this inaccessible cave with a sheer 2,000
foot drop if you miss a foothold, was my Justin. 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. As pointed out, the blasting going on
for the railway line directly below thesite is in danger of forever
destroying the site. |
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