Have you heard the term "petroglyph"? It refers to prehistoric engravings on rocks and cave surfaces - internal or external - and usually consist of symbols, geometric patterns, myth representations, and everyday activities, for example. For a new collection of these images has been discovered and most interestingly, they seem to have been left by an unknown civilization.

Initiative and cooperation

Petroglyphs were discovered on hilltops in a region called Konkan, which lies in the west of Maharashtra, India, by Sudhir Risbood and Manoj Marathe - a dedicated pair of explorers. More specifically, after these guys found a lot of prints in the area, they decided to search the territory and contact the villages distributed there.

One of the discovered petroglyphs (BBC)

Then, after traveling thousands of miles and talking to a lot of people, Risbood and Marathe began to receive pictures of petroglyphs - and that's when the idea came to get in touch with local schools, get information from local elders, and summon the population to help find the pictures.

Think ... 12 thousand years! (BBC)

The project was a real success and according to archaeologists working on identifying and cataloging the petroglyphs, they are located in the vicinity of 52 villages, mainly in the Ratnagiri and Rajapur areas, and there are thousands of them!

Mystery

As far as it was raised so far, petroglyphs were created 12, 000 years ago and there is an impressive array of designs - including animal prints, human figures, birds and geometric shapes. The amazing thing is that, although the images were taken so long ago, no one knew of their existence until now, since they were covered by a layer of earth. Moreover, archaeologists have no idea who their "authors" were.

Another of the petroglyphs found (BBC)

Archaeologists have explained that none of the pictures show scenes related to agriculture or food cultivation, for example, but there are drawings of animals and game - which, to the researchers, may be evidence that the petroglyphs were created by a civilization. of hunter-gatherers.

Who would be the authors? (BBC)

Another peculiarity revealed by archaeologists is that, just as family animals were identified among the drawings, such as turtles, whales and sharks, images of creatures that are not native to that region of India, such as rhinos and hippos, were found. One theory is that whoever created the petroglyphs came from somewhere else and settled there, but until researchers no longer study the prints and discover more information about them, the origin of the drawings will remain a mystery.

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