Millennial "X-ray" image discovered in India

Millennial "X-ray" image discovered in India
Millennial "X-ray" image discovered in India
Anonim

An international team of scientists has described hundreds of rock carvings found in India. The earliest of them are about 30 thousand years old. One of the drawings turned out to be extremely rare.

The research is published in the journal Antiquity. A rare image, as well as hundreds of other drawings, have been found near the source of the Betwa River in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. The first samples of rock art were found here in 1976.

The new study details hundreds of more drawings found on the slopes of local hills. Their ages vary considerably. The earliest of them were created about 30 thousand years ago, and the latest date back to about 1500 AD. Accordingly, the drawings differ in style, colors, subjects and patina.

One of them depicts a man squatting over a deer, apparently hunted. This is indicated by an arrow that pierced the side of the animal. A man holds a knife in his left hand. Scientists believe that he is preparing to butcher the carcass. The bow and spear lie on the ground next to him.

The deer is not just drawn in a naturalistic way. Scientists have compared his image with an X-ray one. The animal is painted with contour red paint, and the artist has drawn in detail its internal organs. The X-ray drawing was so detailed that it was possible to determine the morphology. Scientists believe it was a Barasingha swamp deer.

Not far from the hunter freshening the carcass, another S-shaped human figure is depicted, apparently watching the butchering of deer. By the way, both of these people are depicted with the same feather headdresses. There is also a third person in the picture. He walks towards the deer, holding a bow and a spear in his hands.

Such plots are extremely rare. In India, for example, so far only one drawing has been found, depicting a scene of butchering the carcass of an animal killed in a hunt.

We add that the oldest rock paintings were painted in green, red and white. They include images of 80 animals and 67 people. Scientists also found a bird and a flower. One image could not be identified. Of the 297 discovered drawings, 152 are well preserved, while the rest have faded.

Deer, wild boars and buffaloes dominate among the images of animals. All of them are drawn in a naturalistic style. The five drawings look like animal images. But they turned out to be too faded to identify them.

Recommended: