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A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images. Petroglyphs, estimated to be 20,000 years old are classified as protected monuments and have been added to the tentative list of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. Petroglyphs are found worldwide, and are often associated with prehistoric peoples. The word comes from the Greek prefix petro-, from πέτραpetra meaning "stone", and γλύφωglýphō meaning "carve", and was originally coined in French as pétroglyphe.
In scholarly texts, a petroglyph is a rock engraving, whereas a petrograph (or pictograph) is a rock painting.[1][2] In common usage, the words are sometimes used interchangeably.[3][4] Both types of image belong to the wider and more general category of rock art or parietal art. Petroforms, or patterns and shapes made by many large rocks and boulders over the ground, are also quite different. Inuksuit are not petroglyphs, but human-made rock forms found in Arctic regions.
History
Composite image of petroglyphs from Scandinavia (Häljesta, Västmanland in Sweden). Nordic Bronze Age. The glyphs have been painted to make them more visible.A petroglyph of a caravan of bighorn sheep near Moab, Utah, United States; a common theme in glyphs from the desert Southwest and Great Basin
Petroglyphs have been found in all parts of the globe except Antarctica, with highest concentrations in parts of Africa, Scandinavia and Siberia, many examples of petroglyphs found globally are dated to approximately the Neolithic and late Upper Paleolithic boundary (roughly 10,000 to 12,000 years ago).
Around 7,000 to 9,000 years ago, following the introduction of a number of precursors of writing systems, the existence and creation of petroglyphs began to suffer and tail off, with different forms of art, such as pictographs and ideograms, taking their place. However, petroglyphs continued to be created and remained somewhat common, with various cultures continuing to use them for differing lengths of time, including cultures who continued to create them until contact with Western culture was made in the 19th and 20th centuries.[citation needed]
Interpretation
Many hypotheses exist as to the purpose of petroglyphs, depending on their location, age, and subject matter. Some petroglyph images most likely held a deep cultural and religious significance for the societies that created them. Many petroglyphs are thought to represent a type of symbolic or ritualistic language or communication style that remains not fully understood. Others, such as geocontourglyphs, more clearly depict or represent a landform or the surrounding terrain, such as rivers and other geographic features.[citation needed]
Some petroglyph maps, depicting trails, as well as containing symbols communicating the time and distances travelled along those trails, exist; other petroglyph maps act as astronomical markers. As well as holding geographic and astronomical importance, other petroglyphs may also have been a by-product of various rituals: sites in India, for example, have seen some petroglyphs identified as musical instruments or "rock gongs".[5]
Some petroglyphs likely formed types of symbolic communication, such as types of proto-writing.[6] Later glyphs from the Nordic Bronze Age in Scandinavia seem to refer to some form of territorial boundary between tribes, in addition to holding possible religious meanings. Petroglyph styles have been recognised as having local or regional "dialects" from similar or neighboring peoples. Siberian inscriptions loosely resemble an early form of runes, although no direct relationship has been established.
Petroglyphs from different continents show similarities. While people would be inspired by their direct surroundings, it is harder to explain the common styles. This could be mere coincidence, an indication that certain groups of people migrated widely from some initial common area, or indication of a common origin. In 1853, George Tate presented a paper to the Berwick Naturalists' Club, at which a John Collingwood Bruce agreed that the carvings had "... a common origin, and indicate a symbolic meaning, representing some popular thought."[7] In his cataloguing of Scottish rock art, Ronald Morris summarized 104 different theories on their interpretation.[8]
Other theories suggest that petroglyphs were carved by spiritual leaders, such as shamans, in an altered state of consciousness,[9] perhaps induced by the use of natural hallucinogens. Many of the geometricpatterns (known as form constants) which recur in petroglyphs and cave paintings have been shown by David Lewis-Williams to be hardwired into the human brain. They frequently occur in visual disturbances and hallucinations brought on by drugs, migraine, and other stimuli.
The Rock Art Research Institute (RARI) of the University of the Witwatersrand studies present-day links between religion and rock art among the San people of the Kalahari Desert.[10] Though the San people's artworks are predominantly paintings, the beliefs behind them can perhaps be used as a basis for understanding other types of rock art, including petroglyphs. To quote from the RARI website:
Using knowledge of San beliefs, researchers have shown that the art played a fundamental part in the religious lives of its painters. The art captured things from the San's world behind the rock-face: the other world inhabited by spirit creatures, to which dancers could travel in animal form, and where people of ecstasy could draw power and bring it back for healing, rain-making and capturing the game.[11]
The Niari Valley, 250 km south west of Brazzaville
Egypt
Qurta, on the east bank of the Nile River in the upper Nile valley, has Nubian Sandstone formations featuring the first and earliest known examples of petroglyphs in the region of North Africa, dating back to 19–15,000 years BP[12][13]
Wadi Hammamat in Qift, many carvings and inscriptions dating from before the earliest Egyptian Dynasties to the modern era, including the only painted petroglyph known from the Eastern Desert and drawings of Egyptian reed boats dated to 4000 BCE
Inscription Rock in South Sinai, is a large rock with carvings and writings ranging from Nabatean to Latin, Ancient Greek and Crusader eras located a few miles from the Ain Hudra Oasis. A second rock sites approximately 1 km from the main rock near the Nabatean tombs of Nawamis with carvings of animals including Camels, Gazelles and others. The original archaeologists who investigated these in the 1800s have also left their names carved on this rock.
Giraffe petroglyphs found in the region of Gebel el-Silsila. The rock faces have been used for extensive quarrying of materials for temple building especially during the period specified as the New Kingdom. The Giraffe depictions are located near a stela of the king Amenhotep IV. The images are not dated, but they are probably dated from the Predynastic periods.
Kollur, Villupuram, Tamil Nadu 35 km from Villupuram in Tamil Nadu. A large dolmen with four petroglyphs that portray men with trident and a wheel with spokes has been found. The discovery was made by K.T. Gandhirajan. This is the second instance when a dolmen with petrographs has been found in Tamil Nadu, India.[24] In October 2018, petroglyphs were discovered in the Ratnagiri and Rajapur areas in the Konkan region of western Maharashtra. Those rock carvings which might date back to 10,000 BC, depict animals like hippopotamuses and rhinoceroses which are not found in that region of India.[25] Some carving depicts, what appears to be Pisces constellation.[26]
Ratnagiri Maharashtra Petroglyphs, An eight ftlong petroglyph in Devache Gothane village in Rajapur district, Maharashtra.[29]Goddess Lajja Gauri who is similarly portrayed, squatting and with legs facing outward.
Kethaiyurumpu, Tamil Nadu. Situated 28 km north west of Dindigal, Tamil Nadu nearby Idaiyakottai and six km south west of Oddanchartam has revealed several petroglyphs mostly represent abstract symbols on two rocks, which looks like a temporary rock shelter were noticed adjacent to a Murugan temple which is in ruins on top of the Kothaiyurumbu hill.
During recent years a large number of rock carvings has been identified in different parts of Iran. The vast majority depict the ibex.[30][31] Rock drawings were found in December 2016 near Golpayegan, Iran, which may be the oldest drawings discovered, with one cluster possibly 40,000 years old. Accurate estimations were unavailable due to US sanctions.[32]
The oldest pictographs in Iran are seen in Yafteh cave in Lorestan that date back 40,000 and the oldest petroglyph discovered belongs to Timareh dating back to 40,800 years ago.
Iran provides demonstrations of script formation from pictogram, ideogram, linear (2300 BC) or proto Elamite, geometric old Elamite script, Pahlevi script, Arabic script (906 years ago), Kufi script, and Farsi script back to at least 250 years ago. More than 50000 petroglyphs have been discovered, extended over all Iran's states.[33][31][34]
The oldest reliably dated rock art in the Americas is known as the "Horny Little Man." It is petroglyph depicting a stick figure with an oversized phallus and carved in Lapa do Santo, a cave in central-eastern Brazil and dates from 12,000 to 9,000 years ago.[43]
^Wieschhoff, Heinrich Albert (1945). Africa. University of Pennsylvania Press. Most noteworthy among the relics of Africa's early periods are the rock-paintings (petrographs) and rock-engravings (petroglyphs) which have been discovered in many parts of the continent.
^T. Douglas Price (2012). Europe Before Rome: A Site-by-Site Tour of the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. Oxford University Press. p. 116. This art falls into two categories, depending on how it is made: petroglyphs are carved into rock, and pictographs are painted on the rock.
^"petrograph". Merriam-Webster. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
^Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. Random House. 2001. p. 1449. ISBN 0-681-31723-X.
^J. Collingwood Bruce (1868; cited in Beckensall, S., Northumberland's Prehistoric Rock Carvings: A Mystery Explained. Pendulum Publications, Rothbury, Northumberland. 1983:19)
^Morris, Ronald (1979) The Prehistoric Rock Art of Galloway and The Isle of Man, Blandford Press, ISBN 978-0-7137-0974-2.
^[See: D. Lewis-Williams, A Cosmos in Stone: Interpreting Religion and Society through Rock Art (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2002).]
^Gonzalo de Salazar,"The Chariots of Sahara", Adoranten, Tanum: Scandinavian Society for Prehistoric Art, 2000.
^Parkington, J. Morris, D. & Rusch, N. 2008. Karoo rock engravings. Clanwilliam: Krakadouw Trust; Morris, D. & Beaumont, P. 2004. Archaeology in the Northern Cape: some key sites. Kimberley: McGregor Museum.
^Khechoyan, Anna (January 2007). "The Rock Art of the Mt. Aragats System | Anna Khechoyan". Xxii International Valcamonica Symposium Rock Art in the Frame of the Cultural Heritage of Humankind l'Arte Rupestre Nel Quadro del Patrimonio Culturale dell'umanità,Centro Congressi - Darfo Boario Terme (Bs) Italy 18th - 24th May. Academia.edu. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
^ abcdO'Sullivan, Rebecca (2018). "East Asia: Rock Art". Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology (2 ed.). Springer. pp. 1–11. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_3131-1. ISBN 978-3-319-51726-1.
^Prehistoric petroglyphs found in the area of Bayan-Ovoo (approximately 42,2379 N, 105,5360 E), as described and published by De Salazar Serantes in 1998 (“Discovery of Prehistoric Ruins in Gobi Desert”, by Gonzalo de Salazar Serantes, Adoranten1998. Tanum: Scandinavian Society for Prehistoric Art, 1998, pp 66-69).
Harmanşah, Ömür (ed) (2014), Of Rocks and Water: An Archaeology of Place, 2014, Oxbow Books, ISBN 1-78297-674-4, 9781782976745
Rawson, Jessica (ed). The British Museum Book of Chinese Art, 2007 (2nd edn), British Museum Press, ISBN 978-0-7141-2446-9
Sickman, Laurence, in: Sickman L. & Soper A., The Art and Architecture of China, Pelican History of Art, 3rd ed 1971, Penguin (now Yale History of Art), LOC 70-125675
Further reading
Beckensall, Stan and Laurie, Tim, Prehistoric Rock Art of County Durham, Swaledale and Wensleydale, County Durham Books, 1998 ISBN 1-897585-45-4
Beckensall, Stan, Prehistoric Rock Art in Northumberland, Tempus Publishing, 2001 ISBN 0-7524-1945-5
![Numerous rocks boasting thousand-year-old carvings.[44]](https://limsforum.com/knowledge-base-wiki/?rdp_we_resource=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFile%3ASettlers_at_La_Silla.jpg){kind=small}
![Llamas at La Silla[45]](https://limsforum.com/knowledge-base-wiki/?rdp_we_resource=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFile%3ALlamas_at_La_Silla.jpg)
