PETROGLYPHS

PETROGLYPHS

This work is in fact the first ever record and documentation of petro glyphs in the region of khirthar range, Sindh, which was not an easy task. A brave effort of the author, who has been tirelessly involved into such tough work without consideration of rough terrain and hardships of weather. Being his colleague I had the opportunity to hear the firsthand account of his adventurous trails and explorations therefore fully appreciating the difficulties faced by him.
We have discussed in detail the petro glyphs he discovered, though seemingly very simple ones but these have a whole tradition and messages, which required to be decoded. Few of them are just signs probably indicating language, while others are different scenes like we find globally.
We need to work on the lines of Martineaus and other scholars who have been involved in this work for the last so many decades. Badar Abro has done the basic work it now our duty to take it further, there is a lot of research work required to be taken up for the decipherment, origin, reason for these petro glyphs. Also what is most important is the proper documentation of these along with some proper safety and preservation of these. I am very much sure that one day this area is going to reveal some astonishing facts about human evolution.
Petro glyphs are images incised in rocks, usually by prehistoric people especially Neolithic. They were an important form of pre writing symbols used in communication from approximately 10,000 BC to modern times, depending on culture and location. Many petro glyphs are thought to represent some kind of symbolic or ritual language.
Cro- Magnons who lived about 40,000 to 10,000 years ago in the upper Palaeolithic period of Pleistocene epoch, form the earliest known European examples of Homo sapiens, chromosomally descending from populations of the Middle East.
When they arrived in Europe about 40,000 years ago, they brought with them sculpture, engraving, painting, body ornamentation, music and pains taking decoration of utilitarian objects. Cro-Magnon artefacts include huts, cave painting, carvings and antler tipped spears. They used manganese and iron oxides to paint pictures and many have created the first calendar around 15,000 years ago.
The oldest petro glyphs are dated approximately 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Around 7,000 to 9,000 years ago, other writing systems such as pictographs and ideograms began to appear. Petro glyphs were still common though, tribal societies continued using them much longer though.
Some of the petro glyphs around the world are representing astronomical subjects they are made by carving, etching, incising, rubbing and pounding the rock surface to create image. Petro glyphs are among the oldest form of art known to humans, and they no doubt directly ancestral to the graffiti artists of today.
There is still a big question mark about them, are these Rock Art or Rock writing. Native American tradition combined with scientific decoding methods indicate that “Rock Art” is really a sophisticated form of writing.
La Van Martineau was uniquely prepared to take first bold step not only toward showing that the so called Native American “Rock Art” was really rock writing, but also actually beginning to decipher their messages.
Sign language is usually consisted of a few hundred gestures that could be combined together to communicate complex ideas between the various tribes, as the spoken languages are quite different, but the sign language is universal.
La Martineau’s rock writing work is of particular interest to linguistics because it appears to confirm the existence of strictly ideographic writing system lacking any phonetic (sound) components. Native Americans, regardless of the very different languages that they spoke, could reputedly read the writing and understand the historical narrative or religions allegory in great detail from a few simple figures. It would appear that the origins of such writings may predate other writing system, which are either alphabetic (like English, Spanish, Latin etc) logographic/syllabic (Chinese/Japanese) or incorporate auxiliary phonetic symbols to augment ideograph ( Mayan & Egyptian Hieroglyphics ).
Some complex panels could be related to historical events, these can be retrieved from the history books plus songs and stories of tribes. Rock writings were not ordered in any particular way.
Pictographs form of writing can compress a tremendous amount of information into a small space.
Some researchers have noticed the resemblance of different styles of Petro glyphs across different continents, while it is expected that all people would be inspired by their surroundings; it is hard to explain the common styles.
Jungian psychology and Mircea Eliade explains this as a result of genetically inherited structure of human brain.
Thousands of Petro glyphs cover cliffs, boulders, rocks, pathways along with the Indian River valley across high mountains which were once witnessed trade, merchants, pilgrims and conquerors.
The earliest Petro glyphs, known to this area are depicting wild animals such as ‘Ibex’ and the Himalayan blue sheep, which are created by groups of hunter gatherers during the time of early Holocene.
Till the early 1st millennium B.C. the ‘Eurasian animal style’ of drawing was introduced from central Asia by Scytho-Saka tribal groups.
The ancient arteries of Silk route cut through the Diamer District of Northern Pakistan, over 50,000 rock carving and 5,000 inscriptions discovered in this region from the Epi Paleolithic period and the pre Islamic ”golden era” of Buddhism. In 2006, Govt. Of Pakistan approved the construction of a Dam near Basha that will submerge these Petro glyphs.
There is a need to balance development and heritage stewardship, documentation of the petro glyphs and possible protection measures.

Dr.Asma Ibrahim
Director
Museum & Art Gallery Dept.
State Bank of Pakistan
I.I.Chundrigar Road
Karachi