Rock Art

The term Rock Art is commonly Known as the paintings and engravings made on cave walls by Prehistoric people. That is the period before history was written. It can also be extended to cover the artwork done in rocks and hillocks by the prehistoric people , after history can be or was written.

In the later, it is called Cave Art. Here we have presented a simulated view of a few popular and not so popular important Rock and Cave Art Sites of Tamilnadu in India, about fifty thousand years ago from Prehistoric times to the medieval historic period

Due to their general location in highly inaccessible places, Rock Art remains as unknown or little known treasures of art throughout the world. The sites where in Rock Art was painted/chiselled were also used as temporary shelters, they are popularly designated as 'Rock Shelters'.(homes)

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Karikkiyoor

Karikkiyoor, a village about 40 km from Kotagiri, about 2 km trek to the shelter in Nilgiri district.

The huge rock, about 300 feet high and 500 feet long, with paintings and it is known as is one of the longest pre-historical rock art sites found in Tamil Nadu, The paintings extend to a length of nearly 150 ft.

The painting scenes include more than 400 figures, of animals and human figures . There are series of depiction of bulls and bullfights, wild animals like boar, deer, elephants, fowl and monkeys. A man is shown riding on an animal while another man is carrying some animal. There are also paintings of snake fight and depiction of warriors with weapons.

The procession of bulls and calf are the master pieces. Another interesting depiction is a group of dancers.The colours used here are red and white.

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Vellarikombai

Vellarikombai, situated 20 km from Kotagiri, is in the Jakanare slopes reserved forest, Nilgiri District. Locally this rock art site is known as eluthupaarai .

Vellarikombai rock art is regarded as unique as its depiction are full of stylized forms and absence of general depiction of animals and human activities such as hunting and dancing scenes as in the other rock art sites of Nilgiri. The rock art noticed here depicts human figures in stylistic form, a bull a cat like animal and a hand. All these are executed with red ochre.
The tradition of painting still exists among the Kurumbas and there is only one old man still practising the art. Further it was limited to decoration and painting during the annual festival (thiruvizha) of the Kurumbas. They prefer to use red ochre