Kurshiburu : a rocK art site of eastern india

Kurshiburu: a rock art site of Eastern India A large number of cupule marks are found on a big triangular shaped stone slab on top of a hillock known as Kursiburu. It is located near the village Patratuli, about 12 km east of Khunti township, Ranchi district in the state of Jharkhand in Eastern India at 83o24'EL and 23o5'NL. The site is on the eastern plateau area of Indian subcontinent. The entire region is undulating, intersected with numerous streams and rivers, forested, studded with low rocky hills (Monadnoks) and some isolated peaks of igneous origin. The cupule marked stone is associated with microliths and haematite nodules. The surface of the nodules showed marks of rubbing for colour. The assemblage is dated to late Pleistocene to early Holocene on the basis of geology. It appears that the cupules were connected with some fertility rites of the prehistoric times. The shape and size of the slab on which the cupules are engraved, nature of the cupules and above all location of the site suggest some kind of public ritual practice. The find has been compared against other similar findings in India and abroad. Methodology for the study of this rock art is followed after those of renowned scholars who have done similar work in rock art.

2009

In 2003, as part of a program of archaeological survey in the southern part of Kurnool District in Andhra Pradesh, south India, a series of previously unreported rock art sites were recorded. These primarily consist of pictographs, painted onto the walls of quartzite rock shelters and boulders. They appear to cover a range of time periods from the present day and potentially extending back into the Pleistocene. This paper presents the results of the research undertaken by the authors in Kurnool district of Karnatak.

The present author explored and studied 32 rock art sites, in Kaladgi basin, North Karnataka, among them 19 of which 67 localities are new discoveries in the Aihole-Badami-Kutakanakeri Series. This paper reviews of rock art of the series, a potential area of the Malaprabha river basin. The rock art includes both petroglyphs and pictograms in the form of cupules, geometrical lines, rhombus, human figures, historical paintings and many other motifs.

There is a continuity of tradition of rock art from the prehistoric period followed by historical and medieval period. From direct superimpositoining of figure it is obvious that the use of liquid red paint/Geru paint is early and dark red and other colour is later. Within early materials, we believe that carefully painted figures in a thick, very dark red to rust coloured paint may be earlier than lighter coloured red figures, which seem to be more haphazardly painted with figure/plant brush/hair brush paints. However, as suggested by some of the scholar like V.S. Wakankar, E. Neumayer, Y. Mathpal and others, the most important basis for relative dating of the rock paintings is the study of the superimpositions.

Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology, 2019

Much has been written on the natural and cultural history of Chitradurga. The area constitutes one of the major rock art regions of Karnataka. Geologically, the area is comprised of granite and Meta basalt. The present paper intends to discuss petroglyphs, mainly cupules. It may be noted that no dates can firmly be attributed to any form of rock art of this region. The petroglyphs comprising cupules, animals, footprints, etc. are likely to shed new light on some important aspects of the culture of the contemporary human past.

Antiquity, 2010

Journal of the Directorate of Culture and Archaeology, 2014

The authors have surveyed the little known paintings of the Kurnool area in central south India, bringing to light the varied work of artists active from the Palaeolithic to the present day. By classifying the images and observing their local superposition and global parallels, they present us with an evolving trend -from the realistic drawings of large deer by hunter-gatherers, through the symbolic humans of the Iron Age to the hand-prints of more recent pilgrims and garish life-size modern 'scarecrows'. Here are the foundations for one of the world's longest sequences of rock art.