ROCK TALES: Paintings of a tall man, a scorpion and geometric figures discovered near Usilampatti in Madurai district, Tamil Nadu.
CHENNAI: A cavern filled with ancient rock paintings has been discovered at Puthurmalai, 6 km from Usilampatti in Madurai district in Tamil Nadu. Malaipatti is the nearest village.
The paintings include human figures dancing, marching, hunting and riding on animals, scenes of chase and unidentified animals. Others include geometrical designs and abstract paintings.
A 10-member team headed by K.T. Gandhirajan, an explorer who specialises in art history, found the site on October 3.
The team included K. Natarajan, lecturer, Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai; P. Manivannan, senior designer, The Hindu, Chennai; students of the Government College of Fine Arts and members of the Paliyar tribe. The paintings are on the low ceiling of a rock inside the cavern. There are altogether about 25 paintings. They have been done with white kaolin.
They show a man with a spear walking with a dog; men dancing with outstretched arms; and a scorpion. One scene shows a man walking with a head-load, and two men marching. The purposive gait of the marching men is brought out.
According to Mr. Gandhirajan, "a speciality" of these paintings is that several human figures and unidentified animals have thick, three or four white dots around them. Besides, the fingers of men are boldly indicated. The toes of animals are prominently shown.
"This [fingers and toes shown prominently] is normally absent in other cave-painting sites," said Mr. Natarajan. Mr. Gandhirajan called the paintings "stylistically sophisticated."
They belong to different periods, and the subjects changed depending on the period in which they were drawn. The earliest of the paintings could be more than 1,500 years old, he said.
Modern-day graffiti in Tamil jostled with some of these ancient, invaluable paintings.
The team discovered this rock-art site when it went on an expedition in search of cave paintings and archaeological remains in the region.
In several caverns in the hills in the region, smoke has formed a thick deposit on the ceilings and walls where, the Paliyar tribals said, they had earlier seen paintings of men, deer, dogs and so on. Obviously, smoke from fires lit by shepherds in the caves had formed a film over the paintings, said Mr. Gandhirajan.
He pointed out that he and others had earlier found a rock-art site in a nearby location called Chitrakkalpudavu ("rock-cavern with paintings" in Tamil) some nine years ago.