Wednesday 15 September 2021

watagal Pre Historic Rock Art Site

Watagal is situated in Manvi taluk of Raichur district and it is about 25 Kms.Lingasugur on the road leading to Raichur (District).Karnataka State .It (16 06 N 76 45 E) was first recorded by R. Bruce Foote in 1896 . Subsequently visited by various scholars and even by Dr .A.Sundra in 1975 .The materials available here are from prehistoric to historic period. Excavations were conducted here by Dr.Jim G.Shaffer and the State Archaeology department since 1978 till 1998 over about five seasons.
To the south of the village there is a large granite inselberg.This in the esest West direction.piled up with lengthy pieces of granite rock.On the esest side of the hill the soil is extremely less.on the top position there is some soil.Only pilled up granite rocks can be seen in the rest of the please.Originally archaeological deposits encircled the inselberg.however construction of a temple complex and direct use of the site area for cultivation and animal pens destroyed a large area.The disturbed area is in the south side.
In the hillock near the Western end the rock brasings was noticed in,1987.lnsubsequent years few more paintings were noticed .Dr Balasubramaniam limiting  studies to the rock bruisings only.. after visited this site Mohan R,K.Linganna,Devaraju his team some more scholars.
The main figure is a bull being attacked by a tiger.The face of the bull is turned down and the horns are depicted curved inside.bending towards the same side.just in front is a tiger with raised tall. The hub of the bull is very well done and the legs are slender with delicately painted hoofs.The bull is boldly depicted with robust body features.with broad chest and thin waste and having a long tail portion.The entire figure catches the eye of the onlookers.
The tiger is depicted in a very bold way.No doubt the tiger is shorter than the bull but it' depicts the leaping and attacking style with raised ears.The body is decorated with straps like a tiger in a real sense.The body portion with straps are done with etching and subsequently bruised while the legs have bruisings done as above.
The technique employed for depicting the bull in the body portion and the body portion of the tiger is etching, where as the outer line of these animals has the bruisings.
The top position of the boulder, above these animals has the depicted of man in motion, swastika like design with bent ends,man ma(in Brahmi letter)tree, with circle at the bottom and two branches on the sides.The bottom portion in between the animals has a standing man in moving posture and there is a plus mark near it.Under the tiger,at the bottom portion there is a twig like depiction. This rock art is belong to Neolithic period watagal is an ancient village settlement from Neolithic period (circa 5000 B.C.) this village archaeological adeviance also available for example Neolithic period, broken pottery pieces, hands tool's beeds,bled pieces,ash mound prices and lron slag please Save the History Share the People..... More than details contact my phone number 9482006679.