On the walls of the rock shelters at Bhimbetka, humans have documented their history for tens of thousands of years and have left us with an incredible record. With unbelievable detail, paintings on the faces of caves show the development of the people who lived here from as early as 30,000 years ago up until the Medieval period. The paintings reveal different aspects of the lives of early man. There are hunting scenes, images of people riding horses or elephants, paintings of the fashions of women, and depictions of household activities. Animals are a common motif in the paintings and you’ll be able to see elephants, tigers, antelope, and even lizards.
It’s quite incredible to walk in the peaceful environment of the rock shelters and imagine the humans that lived here many millennia ago. The reason the colours – red, white, yellow, green and black – have lasted for so long is because of the chemical reaction from the oxidation of the natural pigments.
The Bhimbetka Rock Shelters are 47 kilometres from Bhopal. There are about 500 rock shelters with paintings in the site but, in order to protect them, just 15 are open to the public. They show an excellent range of the history and have hundreds of individual paintings on the rocks. It will take at least an hour to tour through them all.