Ancient Rock Paintings Unearthed in Karimnagar

Karimnagar: Members of the Kotha Telangana Charitra Brundham have hit upon several rock paintings dating back to 12,000 years -- of the Mesolithic and early historic periods -- at Guttasingaram village in Peddapalli district.

The association’s convener Sriramoju Haragopal and advisers D Ravinder Reddy and Dr Bandi Muralidhar Reddy were part of the team.

According to Haragopal, they found the rock paintings in shelters deep in the forest on the hillock in Gattusingaram. These were set on the wall of a huge sandstone. The shelters were of 1000 feet long and 50 feet high, and there were six more small rock shelters with paintings.

Altogether, the settings were known as Sitamma Loddi, considered to be the nation’s second longest rock shelter.

The paintings were mainly in red colour while some were in white and yellow colours. Such paintings were not discovered anywhere else in the country so far, Haragopal said.

The paintings consist of human figures of men and women engaged in group dances, in rows and in round patterns, holding hands of each other and wearing a special type of footwear up to their angle.

“The men are with bow and arrows. There are animal figures like of deer, antelope, tortoise, jungle cat, monkeys, lizards etc, painted in different sizes. There are two deer figures painted separately with long decorative horns and tails.”

“Some of the tools and structures used for the paintings were also found, which are of small and different sizes.”

Several handprints of different sizes painted in full red colour along with a deer painted in white colour were also found on the rock shelters.

Apart from the paintings, four engraved and two written label inscriptions in Brahmi script, in the red colour of the early historic period, were found on the big rock shelter. These throw light on the Satavahana dynasty as it has inscriptions of the names of Kumara Hakusiri.”

“A fossilized stone imbibed with shell was also found, which is estimated to date back to 65 million years. This huge rock shelter was a diamond mine. It has rock paintings and would become a good tourist spot like Pandavulagutta in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district.”

Haragopal urged officials of the archeological and tourism departments to protect such rare structures and rock shelters from possible destruction by miscreants, and develop the area as a tourism spot.