Edakkal Caves

Edakkal Caves are two natural caves located 1,200 metres above sea level on

Ambukuthi Mala 25 km from Kalpetta in the Wayanad district of Kerala in India’s

Western Ghats. They lie besides an ancient trade route connecting the high mountains

of Mysore to the ports of Malabar coast. Inside the caves are pictorial writings believed

to be dating to at least 5000 BC, from the Neolithic man, indicating the presence of a

prehistoric civilization or settlement in this region. The Stone Age carvings of Edakkal

are rare and are the only known examples from south India.

Petroglyphs

These are not technically caves, but rather a cleft or rift approximately 96 feet (29 m)

by 22 feet (6.7 m), a 30-foot-deep (9.1 m) fissure caused by a piece of rock splitting

away from the main body. On one side of the cleft is a rock weighing several tons that

covers this cleft to form the ‘roof’ of the cave. The carvings are of human and animal

figures, tools used by humans and of symbols yet to be deciphered, suggesting the

presence of a prehistoric settlement.

The petroglyphs inside the cave are of at least three distinct types. The oldest may date

back to over 8,000 years. Evidences suggest that the Edakkal caves were inhabited

several times at different points in history.

The caves were accidentally discovered by Fred Fawcett, a police official of the

erstwhile Malabar state in 1890 who immediately recognised their anthropological and

historical importance. He subsequently wrote an article about them, attracting the

attention of scholars

Probable links with Indus valley civilization

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.

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.

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”.

Edakkal Caves