Theorizing Rock-Art Imagery at Wyndham Falls

Ajay Pratap, Nawal Kumar, Anand Prakash Pathak, JagannathDepartment of History

Faculty of Social Sciences,Banaras Hindu University

Varanasi – 221 005IndiaFor

Presentation at TAG, Durham, 2009

Abstract• In the team mentioned here, Nawal and Anand, are my doctoral students, who have accompanied me on separate fieldtrips, and,

Jagannath, fictitiously named, is our field assistant, who is now part of our two year project ‘The Documentation and Analysis of the Rock Art of Uttar Pradesh with special Reference to the Rock Art of Wyndham Falls, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh’, sanctioned by the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi.

• Aims:• Till date, in all, we have conducted three rounds of field-survey, all of them lasting but a day, at Wyndham Falls, to find new painted rock-

art sites, to survey the associated geomorphological features, to locate associated archaeological evidence, connecting the rock art of Wyndham, with an acceptable archaeological corpus of depositional (stone tools) and post-depositional (contemporary archaeologically significant) material. Our primary purpose, however, in this project, is to document and analyze such painted shelters as we find.

• Excavation of a suitable site, and, precise dating, of the Wyndham rock-art, are also amongst our aims. We have contacted M.G. Yadava, Scientist - SE, Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, Physical Research Laboratory Ahmadabad, in connection with possibility of dating the rock art at Wyndham. He has suggested Standard Radiocarbon using about 1 gm of charcoal or wood material contemporary with the painting. AMS was discussed, however, as AMS involves removing a sample of the original paint, and the organic matter that it contains is then dated, this method tends to damage the painting, Mr Yadava was of the opinion that the former method should be adopted.. This would include recovering datable material through excavation. We intend to apply for relevant permission from the State Archaeology Directorate, U.P., and the Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi. We have also contacted University of Bristol, Department of Archaeology, Alistair Pike, who has used the thorium-Strontium method of dating on European Rock Art sites.

• In many places organic deposits cover rock-paintings and we shall aim to recommend to the Archaeological Survey of India to undertake restoration of these.

• Already our survey has revealed that such shelters are being damaged through illegal quarrying of sandstone. • Covert Illegal tourism, is also there, which has in many cases, led to defacement of rock-paintings. • Equally, it is our aim to make recommendations for the proper conservation of rock-art, of Wyndham, where it has been destroyed by

illegal tourism, and faded or overlain with organic deposits. • After our survey of the entire tract of the Wyndham river is over, we would like to propose that the Forest Department of the Government

of Uttar Pradesh may like to introduce a sort of “Heritage Walk” or “Nature Walk” to allow the proper viewing of these rock-art resources.

Introduction• The first season of survey at Wyndham was conducted by Nawal,

Jagannath, and myself (in October, 2008) and published in the Project Gallery of Antiquity, September Issue, 2009, in which, we were able to locate, mainly, three clusters, of painted rock-shelters, along the course, of the river, that emanates at Wyndham (show slides) In the following season, in 2009, Anand , Jagannath, and I were able to re-study the earlier discovered shelters, and to locate two further new ones (show slides).

• The first of these, comprising some ten boulders and outcrops up to fifty feet from accessible ground-level, and some 150 feet from river-level, and shelters, in a sandstone landscape, heavily patinated, with organic deposit, yielded, mostly faded paintings. This site was named, WYN 1. At WYN 1, (as the following slides show,), the types of paintings found are mainly those of animals, in which that of the elephant, dogs, giraffe, and possibly human figures (show slides), is the most outstanding. This site is located, 1 kilometer, downstream, from the main cascade of the falls.

pictures

pictures

WYN 1

WYN 1

paintings

Elephants

WYN 2

• The following slides show the rock-art at WYN 2. Here we have copious modern graffiti.

• Mostly, individual animal figures occur; however, there is at least one panel that we may label as a narrative one.

• (Show slides of the narrative panel)

WYN 2

WYN 2

WYN 3• WYN 3 is spectacular for many reasons. Located, about a kilometer downstream,

from WYN 1, along the same river, and led by Jagannath, and in a season, when due to previous heavy rainfall, the river was very charged, sometimes wading through it, and falling, a few times, in the process, we reached WYN 3. In many respects, the paintings at WYN 3, as they are clearly narrative (show slide) are by far superior to paintings I have seen during fieldwork at Bhimbetka, Chattaneshwar, Chambdi Nala, Chaturbhujsthan, Chattaneshwar, Rawatbhata and Gandhi Sagar (all in Madhya Pradesh (CAROUSEL SLIDES). For very simply, we think, we have here, a truly prehistoric narrative painted panel.

• This panel (as the slide shows) is painted, into a rectangular, excavated vertical rock face, which causes us to wonder, if such a surface was prepared by the painters, for executing such a panel. This issue would be taken-up, in future field-work. However, it is worth wondering if people who make stone tools are or are not adequately capable of excavating a rock-surface, to prepare a desired surface for purposes of painting it.

• The paintings to the left of this panel (show slide), although faded to some degree, raises, other interesting questions. Looked at closely, we see, that the painted animal figure, is not, as perfectly executed, as the narrative panel, we have referred to, over here. It is amateurish, compared, to the main panel. This leads us to our second hypothesis, here, which is, was this painting executed by children? And if not, then, why not?

• The differing pigmentation of the figure of 8 symbol is another matter that raises questions concerning chronology, execution etc.

Arrow-Crossfire Panel at WYN 3• The main, from our point of interest, here, is the arrow-crossfire-panel, at WYN 2 (slide,video). What does this depict? What

is our theory? We have followed the following deductive steps in this endeavour.• It is set approximately exactly into the excavated vertical surface we have referred to above.• It is executed, over a horizontal length of about one meter (show slide of tracing), evenly in geru (red) paint, which from

Tiwari’s (2000) findings in Mirzapur area, we know, is Ferric Oxide which is freely available in Mirzapur. It is likely that a locally available resin of a type (show slide) could be used as a fixer. Whether resin, suitable plant extracts, were added, as fixer, and colouring material remains to be investigated (details of paint-analysis from Rakesh’s book).

• The chronology of the painting cannot be deduced from its contents as the local terrain looks likely able to support both early Hunter-Fishers and Subsistence-Farmer groups. This point, however, requires radiocarbon ( AMS or standard) or uranium-thorium methods (University of Bristol work), all of which would be proceeded with, with due permissions, for excavation at a suitable location. To thus speak further about the rock-art at Wyndham, at this point, we have to take recourse to iconography.

• Iconographically, however, I may, with the benefit of all team members opinions, and faculty members of our department, regarding this painted prehistoric panel, suggest (slide):

• 1. It represents a narrative panel which is seldom found in prehistoric Indian contexts of rock art.• 2. As it is narrative, that is the sequence it records, indicates all parts of this painting, to be chronologically contiguous.

There is however (show tracing) one squiggle, that is of a later period, possibly, as its paint is slightly orangish, and not a deep-red, like that employed in the narrative panel consistently to cover all the painting.

• 3. The significance of this chronologically contiguous set of figures, whether people firing arrows, from opposite sides, the depicted arrows, in mid-flight, and a remote outline of an enclosure, in which human figures are seen to be squatting, raises issues of viewing, this prehistoric painted panel at wyndham, and the mindsets deployed into its viewing, and, if at all,, and very remotely, the perspectives employed in viewing.

• To an Indian prehistorians, who has worked as in-charge of the prehistoric rock-art gallery of the Indira Gandhi National Center for the arts, New Delhi, for three years, looking at rock-art from around India, and, some times, from other countries, narrative panels is extremely difficult to find.

• A narrative panel of Bhimbetka (show slide) is hardly prehistoric; another from Chambdi Nala, is in a sense narrative, but very minimally so.

• A final point, to raise, in this regard, in the Indian context, regarding rock-paintings, and the profusion of wild animals, and hunt scenes, both of which are found at Wyndham (show slide of individual animal figure, and hunt scene of fantastic animal) is whether even the depiction of a single painted animal constitutes a narrative of sorts. and If so, what does this mean?

Contd.

• Continuing from the previous slide…,• What then, at the interim, is our reading of the

significance, of this panel, at WYN 3, and other paintings found thus far at Wyndham?

• (show slide) our tracing, of this painted panel, giving the real-size, of all its constitutive elements, suggests, to us, that the significance of the painting, is to narrate, a real or fictitious, attack which is unresolved, the defense, of a prehistoric habitation, of the prehistoric Wyndham area.

• This is as far as we wish to go, in relating its iconographic significance. Let us then, very briefly, move, to some associated archaeofacts.

Contd. (2)

• 1. the WYN 1, WYN 2 and WYN 3 are all uniformly set and located, in a very, by any standards, rugged country-side.

• 2. Mirzapur sandstones, typically, are very dangerously slippery, in the rainy-season, and even in the dry-season, and with field-boots, one must fieldwalk, extremely, carefully.

• 3. However, the availability of extensive sources of water, due to the Wyndham’s perennial discharge, is the reason, why, these shelters occur here in the first place.

• This is to say, that in prehistory, the Wyndham area, would have been, more than suitable, for prehistoric, subsistence, and, settlement, as well as, naturally, for the purposes of such art as we have found

Theorizing imagery at Wyndham Falls

• The Wyndham paintings are divided into two sets – Those that area single figures, animal, human or symbols, and those that are narrative panels…of which we have found no less that two but at the most, three (show slides).

• The latter type of paintings are monoscenic narratives, that is, connecting a single theme….and, therefore,,,probably, record.., what, indeed, did happen, and was intended to be narrated graphically.

• Our field assistant who has family has been residing in this area for at least four generations suggests that near the elephant-panel, and underlying under the patinated deposits are figures of wedding processions and musical instruments and procession of humans in this regard.

• Our field assistant also reports that the area is still supplied with bears, alligators, occasional leopard, foxes, wolves, deer, rabbits, rodents, beaver, fish of various varieties abound…. This makes for a proper setting, even now, for an ecosystem, in which predator-prey relationships, of many types, exist….and may certainly have existed in the past.

• We were able to see for ourselves that femurs, tibia and fibulae of domesticated ungulates which were widely scattered in the forest; a very nicely gnawed metatarsal bone, bearing gnawing marks, and breakage, due to a preying wolves…

• wolf lairs…were also shown to us. • Using the wider database created by previous archaeolgical research in Mirzapur since A C

Carlylle found a rhinoceros hunt-scene at the Ghormangar rock-shelter, and the many other species of animals depicted in Tiwari’s (2000) monograph on the rock-art of Mirzapur, and our own team’s find, at WYN 1, of a beautifully painted elephant, we may hypothesize, that if, these, paintings, are Mesolithic; then certainly the ecology in prehistory was very different….

• conducive, certainly to Hunting-Fishing-Gathering type of subsistence.

Theorizing• What role, then, do, monoscenic narrative, involving more than one human and non-human figures, as in

the painted panel at WYN 1 and WYN 2, suggest?• Territory-marking? This is perhaps, the, most pleasing of our thus-far hypothetical readings, of this panel.• Idle-activity at a hunt-camp? Well an activity can hardly be described as idle, however, the purpose, of it,

may, in our opinion, be called thus. I am not very uptodate with the rigours of a group-hunt, its technology, time-investment etc., nor indeed…except of Vidula Jayaswal’s work…in an area perhaps fifty miles from Wyndham…Leheria-dih, where she excavated a painted shelter..and found microliths, mostly crescentic triangles, and, lunates (give ref)….her own site, Leheria-dih, is also, at present, not precisely dated.

• Paint-for-paint sake….as this final hypothesis, regarding theorizing, imagery, at Wyndham, brings me to a close of this paper and that of my collaborators in Project Wyndham, I would certainly venture to close with one further last comment.

• Archaeologists are adept enough to find archaeological sites, however, there are some biases, inbuilt, into their research procedures..and here are ours.

• Why have we failed to identify gender in the Wyndham rock-art? Why have we failed to identify this figure as male and another as female and, yes, yet another, as a child or children. Is interpreting or theorizing imagery of the past such as prehistoric painting activity a male preserve? Could not these figures be painted equally well by women too? And why do we falter to identify this figure as a male when it is precisely so?

• Thus theorizing imagery of a painted site, such as Wyndham, is extremely difficult an enterprise.• If women painted these figures, then why is there not a single female depiction in it? Or are the human

figures, sitting, in the far-right-side, of the narrative panel, women? Must prehistoric representational codes match our modern ones? Did children also partake in the rock-painting process, and, if, so, then why have we failed to identify them in the paintings and in the production process of paintings?

• It is in this way that imagery from the past becomes a historical resource.• Thank you, ajay pratap.

LANDSCAPE

Bibliography

• Janik, L. (2003).Visual Perception and Cognition in the Rock Carvings of Northern Russia. Consulted 29th October, 2009, http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~lj102/rockart/index.html

• Jayaswal, V. 1982. Excavation of a painted rock shelter at Laharia-dih, Mirzapur district. Bharati (Bulletin of the Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Banaras Hindu University) 1: 126-33.

• M. G. Yadava, K. S. Sarswat, I. B. Singh and R. Ramesh 2007. Evidences of early human occupation in the limestone caves of Bastar, Chhattisgarh. Current Science, Vol 92, no. 6, pp 82—823.

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