After marveled by Sanchi, we headed for another UNESCO world heritage site, Bhimbetka. Bhimbetka lies about 45 kms south east of Bhopal. The place is an UNESCO World heritage site and is famous for its pre-historic rock shelters and rock paintings.
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| Cave structure |
Once inside we were simply amazed. There is a continuous sequence of Stone Age cultures from the late Acheulian to the late Mesolithic period and also some of the world's oldest stone walls and floors. There are 15 rock shelters that are open to public to see; the remaining are all scattered. It compelled us to wonder that it was the same place where our fore fathers had made the amazing cave paintings some thousands of years back, while they were still cave dwellers.
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| Cave Painting |
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| Cave painting |
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| War scene |
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| Hunting scene |
Most of the walls have paintings on them. At least some of the shelters were inhabited by Homo erectus(mind it, not sapiens) more than 300,000 years ago. Some of the paintings are more than 30,000 years old and depict animals, people, hunting scenes. There is one popular rock shelter called "zoo rock" which has drawings of elephants, deer, bison and sambar. Some of the relatively recent paintings depict battle scenes.
The place gets the name Bhimbetka because in the Mahabharatas, which is one of the holy epics of the Hindus, it is written that Bhima or Bhim (one of the Pandava brothers known for his great strength and massively strong build) used the rocks as his sitting place.
we just had an hour for this wonderful place. And we did not know that the place spreads over a large area; otherwise, we would have reserved more time for it. We would advise that you keep aside at least 2.5 hours for visiting this place. This place is huge and interesting. It is good if you can see the place at noon.
There is also a temple very close by, but sadly because of our time constraint we could not visit it.
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| Cave Map |
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| Animals |
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| Group of People |
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| Different paintings |
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| Bhimbetka from outside |
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| Cave System |
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| Taking photograph of Cave shelter |
This is magnificent. Should definitely visit this place.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by....yes this place is really amazing,since we were not much aware of Bhimbetka before going there so we did not keep much time in hand.
DeleteOnce you go,keep aside atleast 2 hours for this wonderful place :)