Engravings at a rock shelter at Tovarimala

There are a few engravings at a rock shelter at Tovarimala behind the Ambukuthimala, where Edakkal cave is located. The engravings at Tovari consist mainly of geometrical figures like triangles, squares and circles.

The rock rock-engravings at Pandavanpara in the Perumkadavila village also have a few rock rock-engravings. The designs are at the entrance wall like, a few human figures, geometrical patterns and sun symbols in the interior of the cave.

Rock Art is the expression on the walls or ceilings of rock shelters of pre-historic people. The Rock Art through out the world has a universal similarity in its contents and style irrespective of their geographical differences. The world famous Rock Art sites are Altamira in Spain, Lascaux in France, Oran in Algeria, Bimbedaka and Mirzapur in India. In India we have more than 5000 rock-art sites spread over in various states. The horse, deer, reindeer, bison, bull, rhinoceros, Giraffe and elephant are the species most commonly depicted themes in Indian Rock Art. Apart from animals, human figures, abstract signs are also depicted in many of the caves in India.

Rock Art in India can be broadly divided into two types Petrographs (Rock-painting) and Petroglyphs (Rockengravings). We have plenty of Rock – Art signs in South India on the Eastern and Western Valleys of Sahya Mountains. There are about 75 Rock art sites in Tamil Nadu, majority of which are Rock paintings where as Kerala has only 7 Rock Art sites discovered so far, among which only one group belongs to Rock painting, all others are Rock engravings. The Marayur Rock Painting in Anjunad Valley was discovered by Dr. S.Padmanabhan Thampi, former Director General, Centre for Heritage Studies, Thrippunithura.

The rock-painting at Marayur Koodakkad (inside the forest of Marayur range) is seen depicited inside of a tall granite boulder that looks like a hood of a serpent. The whole surface is covered by paintings of horse, bull, elephants, elephants with mahout, antelope, impression of palm, ritual dancers, cattle, human figures etc. The colours used are red-ochre, grey as in the case of rock paintings elsewhere.

Dr.Thampi ascribes the antelope, cattle and horse to the Mesolithic period and roughly calculate to about 7000 BC. The human figures are ascribed to the Chalcolithic period of about 2000 BC and the armed rider on the elephant to the early historic period of about 300 BC. (Cultural History of Kerala Vol – I, General Editors Dr. Raghava Varier, 1999, Department of Cultural Publication).

The rock – engravings found in the walls of a rockshelter in the Ambukuthimala at Edakkal is one of the biggest complex of cave engravings so far found in South India. It was discovered by Frederic Fawcett, a British Government Official in 1894. He published his study in 1901. Edakkal literally means a stone in between. The rock shelter is formed naturally out of a strange disposition of three huge boulders making one to rest on the other two with its bottom jutting out in between and serving as the roof.

The right and left walls of this rock-shelter is depicted with engravings. The representations of Edakkal collectively signify a scene of periodical ritual festivity. It seems the engravings represent the transitional phase of Neolithic to Iron Age. The earliest of the engravings relate to the Neolithic period. Engravings of the late phase mainly belong to the Megalithic period (late phase of Neolithic Age), which gives a tentative date of figures to 1000 BC. The engravings on the left wall comprise of a prominent human figure with headgear, another human figure with head gear and decorative objects, a human figure with elaborated head dress, an elephant, a wild dog, plant and flowers, and a wheeled cart. Apart from these there are a number of geometrical figures. The right wall representation consists of a few male and female figures, triangular sign representing human figure, a few geometrical signs and a human figure along with a conical sign. These engravings signify a tribal inhabitation subsisted on hunting and shifting cultivation.

There are a few engravings at a rock shelter at Tovarimala behind the Ambukuthimala, where Edakkal cave is located. The engravings at Tovari consist mainly of geometrical figures like triangles, squares and circles. One of the engravings is a square that is divided into eight. There are also triangles that are repeated more than once. The above said rock-shelters are in the northern part of Kerala. There are a few engravings in the southern districts of Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram. The rock engravings at Odanavattam and Thenmala in Kollam district are discovered by Dr.P.Rajendran, a distinguished Archaeologist. Thenmala rock-engraving belongs to the Mesolithic Age and is dated around 5000 BC.

There are a few geometrical designs like triangle, circle, square and flower. The rock-engravings at Pandavanpara in the PeruMkadavila village in Thiruvananthapuram also have a few rock-engravings. The designs are at the entrance wall like a few human figures, geometrical patterns and sun symbols in the interior of the cave.

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