Thursday, 26 May 2011

Edakkal Caves

The caves contain drawings that range over periods from as early as 5000 BC to 1000 BC. Recently the youngest group of paintings were in the news for a possible connection to the Indus Valley Civilization[6][7][8].
Historian M.R. Raghava Varier of the Kerala state archaeology department identified a sign “a man with jar cup” that is the most distinct motif of the Indus valley civilization[9]. The finding made in 2009 September indicates that the Harappan civilization was active in the region. Interestingly, the “a man with jar cup” symbol from Edakkal seems to be more similar to the Indus motif than those already known from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Mr. Varier said “The discovery of the symbols are akin to that of the Harappan civilisation having predominantly Dravidian culture and testimony to the fact that cultural diffusion could take place. It is wrong to presume that the Indus culture disappeared into thin air.” The scholar of Indus and the Tamil Brahmi scripts, Mr. Iravatham Mahadevan said the findings were very significant called it a "major discovery".