Bhimbetka in brief
Bhimbetka lies in the foothills of the Vindhya range in Madhya Pradesh, about 45 kilometres southeast of the city of Bhopal. Sandstone outcrops there form hundreds of rock shelters, about 750 in all, scattered among forests. About 400 of them hold paintings. The site was listed as a World Heritage Site in 2003. The name is often linked to Bhima, a hero of the Indian epic the Mahabharata, in local tradition.
Discovery
The Indian archaeologist Vishnu Shridhar Wakankar noticed the shelters from a train in 1957, on a journey from Bhopal to Itarsi, and recognised them as similar to rock art that he had seen in Spain and France. (A British officer had mentioned the site briefly in 1888, but its scale was not understood until Wakankar and others worked there.) He and others began to survey and dig there, and over the next years the full extent of the site was discovered.
Long human use
Stone tools from the shelters range from simple handaxes and cleavers of an early date, probably more than 100,000 years old, through microliths, small flakes set into handles, of the Mesolithic period, to later pottery and metal. People lived in the shelters for a very long time, and the paintings are spread over that period.
The paintings
The paintings are done in red, white and sometimes green, with pigments of ground minerals, such as iron-rich ochre. Many are in a simple style that archaeologists link to the Mesolithic, roughly 10,000 years ago and later, with scenes of:
- Hunting of deer, bison, boar and tigers, with figures with bows and spears.
- Dancing and music, with groups of people in lines or circles.
- Animals such as elephants, rhinoceroses, and wild cattle, some drawn in very large size.
- Later paintings of horse riders and soldiers, some from historic times and the early Middle Ages, painted over earlier ones.
Different styles lie one on top of another, and some shelters have several layers of paintings, so that scholars can study the sequence. Some very early figures in green may be older than the red ones, but the dating of the oldest art is debated, as it is difficult to date pigment directly.
Why it matters
Bhimbetka is one of the largest concentrations of rock art in South Asia, and one of the oldest known sites of human life on the Indian subcontinent. It shows how people from many periods used the same landscape, and some of the traditions found in the paintings resemble the art of tribal communities who still live nearby.
Visiting
The site is open to visitors, with paths and signs to the main shelters. Some of the shelters, such as the “Zoo Rock” with its animals, are especially well known. It is a short drive from Bhopal.
Sources
- Wakankar, V. S. and Brooks, R. R. R. (1976). Stone Age Painting in India. Taraporevala.
- Mathpal, Y. (1984). Prehistoric Rock Paintings of Bhimbetka, Central India. Abhinav Publications.
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka.