Prehistoric period Rock Art in a small western Ghats Hill /தேன்வரந்தை குகை ஓவியங்கள் (Thenvaranthai Cave Paintings), Kallapuram / Mathakadiputhur, Palani reigon, Dindigul District, Tiruppur District, Tamil Nadu.

10^th September 2017.

While planning for this Udumalpet Heritage Visit,  we had decided to cover different interest heritage sites like, temples, Nadukarkal, Jain’s monuments and rock art. Normally rock art depicts the animals, human beings and their culture, important rituals, their habits, relation between them with the animals, etc,. We could find such rock arts in caves of various parts of the world. The rock paintings normally in white and red ochre colours. As per the research and the red ochre paintings are more than 10 thousand years old, while the white colour is about 2000 to 3000 years old.

  

This small hill at Mathakadiputhur  is a part of western Ghats. This small hill has 3 to 4  caves or the rock shelters with such rock art paintings. தேன்வரந்தை குகை ஓவியங்கள் ( Thenvaranthai Cave Paintings ), near Kallapuram / Mathakadiputhur.

This rock art is in a open natural cave or the rock shelter measuring approximately 150 feet in length with an opening of about 25 to 30 feet height.  This rock shelter has the group of white colour ( Combination of minerals like lime and vegetable colours )  rock arts depicting men, women and elephants. In one group people are gathered for a rituals. In another group people with children going with a goat for a ritual function. Some of the hand paintings also there to show the strength of the group. In one group of art shows the capturing of elephant and taming for domestic purposes. We could see some of the paintings are  less skilled, which means they are little older than the others. As per the archaeologists these paintings are 2000 to 3000 years old and the shelter was continuously uses for more than 1000 years.

LOCATION OF THE CAVE : CLICK HERE 

---OM SHIVAYA NAMA---