A natural cavern with a profusion of
ancient rock art, contemporary
tribal paintings and even modern day graffiti is discovered near Mavadippy
tribal village about 7 kilometres from the Kadamparai Hyder Power Station in
Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore
district. K.T.Gandhirjan, art historian and explorer and a group of students
from the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai made this discovery on 17 may
2007. Nearby, they also found several
dolmens called ‘muni aria’ in
Tamil language. The dolmens are in square,
rectangular and round shapes. The
paintings are done on a 40 feet long and 20 feet tall rock surface and can be dated
back to 1500 BC.
The paintings include those of a tiger, a deer with straight horns,
a porcupine, a wild boar, a peacock and elephants. There are also men marching,
an unidentifiable animal chasing another, an elephant seizing a man with its
trunk and another man running after it. Men are shown fighting and dancing. A
rare painting has a man in profile with a peculiar headgear. There are several
mystique
designs and ancient graffiti. There is also a motif of a bamboo ladder
like of which are used even now to extract honey from honeycombs. The making of
such ladders, sometimes as tall as 200 feet, is an architect in itself which is
kept secret and done only at night.
The contemporary tribal paintings show a man wearing a tight coat having
rectangular designs on it. A drawing of a bus indicates the excitement it
created on its arrival. Some of these paintings have been recently embellished
with enamel.The dolmens that are in good shape are spacious with compartments
inside believed to be meant for the chieftains. The centre piece is a big
dolmen with a short compound wall made of stones with packing running around.
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