ISCO
The village
of Isco is a gift of time to India.
In the north-eastern most corner of the valley it sits in the armpit formed by
the Hazaribagh plateau and the Sati
Range below the villages
of Saheda and Chapri high up above on the plateau. Densely forested and
temporarily inaccessible this picturesque village and its Munda tribal
inhabitants face eviction by the Rautpara mine. The vast, gentle rice fields
rolling for dozens of miles between forest lake and soaring saal trees will be
gouged to a depth of three hundred feet to create an image from Dante's
Inferno. Isco contains Lower Paleolithic deposits and deep underground caves
inhabited by man during the ice ages, leaving for us one of the richest
collection of Middle Paleolithic stone tool industry in South
Asia. It should have been a World Heritage site, and this has been
said again and again by India's
leading archaeologists apart from myself. The Acheulian hand axes were picked
up from the bed of the river
of Isco which flows
through the Marwateri cave. Borers, scrapers, strippers and hammer stones have
been collected in large numbers in the cave and its surrounds. The deposit was
officially certified by the prehistory department of the Archaeological Survey
of India (S.B.Ota,l995).
About one kilometer to the southwest of the
Marwateri cave is the famous Isco rock paintings brought to international
attention by me in l99l. Over one hundred feet in length this mammoth rock art
( 15 'x 18.7'; 15' x 14.10' ; 15' x 16.10' ; 15' x 8.10'), in four separate
interconnected sections resembling the hook of a cobra is called kohbara by the
local Munda tribals and Oraon tribals whose mud houses come right up to within
a few hundred yards of it. Located deep in a cleft of a sandstone sheet several
hundred yards wide and over a kilometer in length the khovar divides the jungle
from the village. The rock art has been dated by the leading expert on India's
prehistoric rock art, Dr. Erwin Neumayer of Vienna, to the meso-chalcolithic
period or in his dating as I understand it, the period between the appearance
of microliths technology on the one hand and the appearance of copper on the
other, so it is anywhere between 7,000 and 4000 BC.
THETHANGI
A
continuous chain of Mesolithic rockart adorns the walls of the North Karanpura rift valley, interspersed in the
beautiful garment of the perfumed brilliant white Bridal Bouquet creeper which
flowers throughout the winter months. As noted, these sites were brought to
light over successive years, beginning with the Isco rock art in l99l. Today
they are a well established gallery of prehistoric rock art of India,
with the additional dimension of a Paleolithic base on one side, evidence of
continuous civilization and a continuing mural painting tradition by the
Adivasi villagers on the other side. The Sat-pahar consists of a series of
seven triadic ranges in a complex forming its own basins and stream valleys,
upon the tops of whose ranges, in the flanks of whose valleys, are found the
fantastic rockart of a glacial period painted in red hematite and yellow
lignite, for both of which the range is famed. Both the Thethangi (15x15, 15 x
10, 15 x 15 ), and Sariya ( 5' x 8')rockart face south. The rock art covers a
large grey sandstone expanse over fifty feet long and thirty feet high which is
painted with zoomorphs, anthropomorphs, geometrical designs in boxes, very
realistically painted spotted deer (Axis
axis), mandalas, cattle, and
ritually arranged frogs. Both the Thethangi and Sariya rock art caves are very
threatened by the coal expansion project to the base of the hill. The site has
yielded a wide array of stone tools, flakes, microliths, borers, strippers and
hand-axes.
SARIYA
Discovered
by Erwin Neumayer in l994, this is the most picturesque of our rock art sites
(5' x 8'). Perched 3,000 feet high on an eerie 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 west as far as the
Sone river a hundred kilometers distant. 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.
KHANDAR
Khandar
( 8 x 15, 6 x 15) is a beautiful, small, precious rock art site about three
kilometers along the side of the range towards the western end of the range. It
is on a high level of a side stream gorge emerging from the Satpahars. It was
visited by Erwin Neumayer and he drew my attention to a beautiful butterfly,
according to him the only butterfly in Indian rock art . Also depicted is a
uniquely Australian Aboriginal type of honey-bags hive, a bush-bag Mandala,
honey hive, gourd flask, deer, and hunter with bow, throwing-sticks, etc. The
railway line that has reached Sariya will go right past Khandar. From this
beautiful elevation an unparalleled view of the Latehar range is visible sixty
kilometers to the southwest.
RAHAM & SIDPA
On
the opposite side of the Satpahar range, on its north facing side, are three
major rock art sites facing the triple threats of a dam on the Tandwa river,
the effects of the super thermal power project coming in the are shortly, and
the opening of the Magadh and Amrapalli mines which we have collectively been
able to hold up so far. Raham will stand along the edge of the submergence
zone, being the easternmost of the three sites. The rockart of Raham is on a
high perpendicular/vertical rectangular wall of sandstone with wonderful boxed
mandalas painted in red haematite. The cave was believed to have been a refuge
for the Tana Bhagats during the end of the nineteenth century from which period
some graffiti remains on the lower edges. About six kilometers to the west is
the Sidpa rock shelter with its enigmatic drawings of deer and bull. Here is
found a perfect tattoo design from the meso-chalcolithic still in use in the
women's body decoration in almost all the tribes. This is a typical feature in
dozens of rockart motifs being directly related to art-forms such as mural
painting, tattoo, metal casting, modeling, weaving and basketry, pottery,
carpentry, and other crafts still today being practiced in the valley.
GONDA
This
is a new rock art site recently brought to light by Neeraj Vagholikar. It
contains deer and elephant drawings. Illustrated is the head of a stag from the
rock art.
SATPAHAR
Satpahar-I
In a row, on the east-west ridge of the
Satpahar massif are these three unparalleled rock art sites set amidst lush
forests of pristine saal, set on huge, vertical walls of sandstone, so perfect
in their setting that they seem for all the world as if they were erected for
this express purpose ! The first is Satpahar-I, (6 x 12 ), which is in the
southern end and on a high clear sandstone wall towering over its own huge
sandstone foundation in a vast stone expanse measuring six by twelve feet
presents us with the only examples of deer with bandaged feet which according
to Erwin Neumayer is a sign the art was painted during an ice age (
l0,000 BC) and also having a bison with X-ray, and deer painted in the almost
identical style as in the Likhanya rock art of the Kaimur range of Mirzapur.
Satpahar-II
Slightly
removed and on the west facing slope of the hill, we find Satpahar-II (3.6' x
14') in its wide berth of sandstone, sitting sheltered for aeons from wind and
rain, and the sweeping dust-storms of the summer through the valley, sheltered
by the thick saal foliage. Here we find a hunter's paradise: a string of
animals from right to left a pair of huge humped bison or gaur, a pair of nilgai or bluebull, a type of Indian
antelope; a pair of tigers, the male behind accompanied by three wild boar;
then a langur monkey facing a pair of hunters with bows and arrows, one hunter
shown in its stomach (!); a wild buffalo, and a horned rhinoceros, with some
more figures of x-ray animals.
Satpahar-III (7' x 10')is famed for possessing perhaps the oldest crucifix form (Great One) set over a double line of racing spotted deer.
Satpahar-III (7' x 10')is famed for possessing perhaps the oldest crucifix form (Great One) set over a double line of racing spotted deer.
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