Bhimbetka

Bhimbetka is an archeological site of the Madhya Pradesh comprising different rock shelters. Some of these shelters delivered cave paintings going back to some 9.000 years. The site was classified with the world heritage of humanity by UNESCO.

Situation

The shelters under rocks of Bhimbetka are located at 45 km in the south of Bhopal, with the southern edge of the mounts Vindhya. To the south of the site the chain extends from the Satpura. All the area is covered with a thick forest and it provides the essential resources to a human establishment, like a permanent supply water, natural shelters, a very rich flora and a fauna.

Discovered

The site of Bhimbetka was discovered by chance by professor W. Wakankar of the Vikram university in 1958. Whereas it returns by train of an excavation campaign in the Chambal, it sees rock formations which it thinks of resembling some others that it visited in France and in Spain. It crosses then through the forest and discovers the site which it excavates between 1958 and 1974.

One counts more than 600 shelters distributed in five groups. That of Bhimbetka itself comprises 243 of them, that of Lakha Juar 178. The site is surrounded blackjack villages adavasi , i.e. where live indigenous to which the daily life is rather close to the scenes described by paintings.

Cave paintings

The majority of paintings were carried out by using Pigment S reds and white, more rarely green and yellow. They represent scenes of hunting, dances, men overlapping of the elephants and the horses, collecting Miel, carrying body decorations and masks. One finds also scenes of the daily life, combat of animals. Among the identified animals, one notes the Paon, the Bison, the tiger, the Lion, the Sanglier, the elephant, the Antilope, the Chien and the Lézard.

See too

External bonds

Official site of Bhimbetka to UNESCO
photographs of the site

Random links: