6. • It looked like an arched dome. The entire natural
cavern was painted with rock art. A spectacular
feature of the site is that the rock surface is an
admixture of ancient rock art and contemporary tribal
paintings, showing a continuity of tradition."
• The painted surface is about 40 feet (12 metres) long
and 20 feet wide. The images include a tiger, a deer
with straight horns, anthropomorphic figures marching
inside a circle, an elephant seizing a man with its
trunk while another man chased it, and several
paintings of a bamboo-ladder used for taking honey
from the heights. Contemporary tribal paintings show
the profile of a man wearing a headgear and that of
another man in a tight-fitting coat with rectangular
designs on it. This man has his right hand raised,
while his left hand rests on the waist.
7. • It had discovered a prehistoric rock art site at
Porivarai (2003), and ancient rock paintings at
Salekkurai and Sundasingam (2005), near
Karikkiyur, about 40 km from Kothagiri in the
Nilgiris.
• the largest rock art site in South India with about
500 paintings in an area that is 53 m long and
15 m wide. Experts say the rock paintings at
both Mavadaippu and Karikkiyur could be dated
to 2000 B.C. to 1500 B.C.
8. • The paintings in white ochre include a
procession of bisons, monkeys clambering up a
tree branch, a herd of deer grazing, human
beings welcoming one another with outstretched
arms, a battle scene with men aiming at each
other with bows and arrows, men on horseback
engaged in battle, a shoulder-clasping dance
after a successful boar-hunt, a man with a mask,
the depiction of sun and its rays, a spiral, a tiger
fighting another animal, and a man and his dog
sleeping.
