Some 123 years after British police officer Fred Fawcett’s chance discovery of the world-famous Edakkal Caves and their Neolithic petroglyphs, an equally important prehistoric rock art site has been spotted in the foothills of the Ambukuthi hills — in the same village located in Sulthan Bathery taluk of Kerala’s Wayanad district.
The site has been discovered by independent researcher, writer and national award-winning filmmaker O.K. Johnny, whose efforts had earlier attracted leading historians and archaeologists to the Edakkal Caves. In 1984, Mr. Johnny had discovered a set of petroglyphs at Thovari hillocks, also in Sulthan Bathery taluk.
“Petroglyphs [carvings] and petrographs [drawings, paintings] are commonly found in rock shelters but in Ambukuthi they are being discovered on some granite blocks that are independently located. The rock engravings are very similar to the Edakkal and Thovary petroglyphs and they are situated between the Ambukuthi hill and Thovari rock and that too at a distance of just 5 km,” says Mr. Johnny. “It is likely that the same artists who created the engravings in Ambukuthy and their descendants created the petroglyphs in Thovari and Edakkal,” he says. “The Ambukuthi valley engravings are seen on six small rocks located on a lakeside, and they have a striking similarity to the Thovari carvings — in their style, motifs and workmanship. Both in Thovari and in the Ambukuthi valley, there are no human or animal figures in motion as seen in the Edakkal caves. Like in Thovari, Ambukuthi valley engravings are abstract and made of thick long lines,” Mr. Johnny explains.
Eminent historian M.R. Raghava Varier, who attempted to analyse Thovari signs in the eighties and found some surprising similarities with Indus motifs, said the Ambukuthi valley engravings would inform future studies of rock art culture in south India.
