Protective cover for pre-historic carvings
The state government has sanctioned the protection and conservation of pre-historic era petroglyphs in Ratnagiri district. These petroglyphs — which are rock art carved into the ground — are believed to have come up sometime between 10,000 and 2,000 years ago.
The directorate of museums and archaeology had proposed the conservation and protection of petroglyphs spread across 17 villages in Rajapur, Sangameshwar and Ratnagiri talukas, in this Rs 6 crore project.
On June 20, the FPJ had reported how a funds crunch had affected the conservation of these sites, which are the oldest known evidence of art in Maharashtra and predate paintings in caves like Pitalkhora, Ellora and Ajanta.
After this report, cultural affairs minister Amit Deshmukh granted administrative approvals on Tuesday for the conservation and protection of these carvings. Accordingly, protection walls, observation towers and tourist amenities like toilets, drinking water facilities and restaurants will be constructed, and signages will be installed.
Officials said around 125 petroglyphs would be covered under this project. Barring one location which involves land acquisition, the consent of landowners for right of way will be taken for developing these amenities. Ratnagiri has over 1,200 carvings at 62 locations, and in Sindhudurg, 60 carvings have been discovered at around five sites. This is for the first time that they will be protected and conserved. These reliefs are estimated to have been carved out in laterite rock by prehistoric humans in a period between 10,000 years and 2,000 years ago.
Some animals represented in these petroglyphs include rhinos and elephants, which do not have a natural habitat in the Konkan today. The widest petroglyph is an elephant carving at Kasheli in Rajapur (18 meter x13 meter), which is the largest petroglyph in South Asia, while the smallest is 2cm x 3cm and was found at Jaigad.
One petroglyph has a human holding a tiger in each hand, which is a common Harappan symbol found on seals and is a common motif in West Asian art. However, the identity of the people who carved these petroglyphs is yet unknown. Further research would have revealed more evidence of the history of Konkan and Maharashtra before the Satavahana era set (2 B.C onwards) and do away with this “dark age” in our understanding of human evolution. The oldest archaeological finds in Maharashtra are the around 75,000-years-old stone tools in the Godavari river basin at Gangapur in Nashik.