This festival highlight the paintings which gained the UNESCO's attention
Ancient rock paintings in Kethavaram village. - DC
kurnool: Officials from Archaeology and Tourism departments visited Kethavaram village to inspect and plan development of prehistoric rock paintings dating back to 10,000 years. Plans are also afoot to conduct a Rock Art Festival in January 2015 to highlight the paintings which gained the UNESCO's attention.“Prehistoric rock paintings of animals as old as 10,000 years adorn red sand stone rocks in Keth-avaram village. There are 42 rock paintings, most of them on a ship shaped rock. Prehistoric man loved animals and ancient civilization thri-ved in Kethavaram,” said district tourism officer B. Venkateshwarlu.
Paints made of red soil, animal fat and colours derived from leaves were used for the paintings which also include a swastika painting.“An amount of Rs25 lakh has been sanctioned for the development of Keth-avaram rock paintings. We have come to inspect and develop it as a tou-rist spot,” said Director of Archaeology G. V. Rama Krishna.“For the past 30 years, local people could not understand the theme of the paintings; we conducted awareness meetings to highlight the significance of the legen-dary paintings and create a sense of belonging. We told that their village can be put on the world map which can generate tourism revenue,” said B. Venkateshwarlu.
Principal Chief Secre-tary of Tourism Chan-dana Khan has approved the Rock Art Festival pl-an and it is scheduled to happen in January 2015. The festival will have photo exhibition., painting competitions, Kuchipudi dance, puppet shows and rural games kabaddi and koko. "We want to develop Kethavaram on the lines of Bheem Metka in Madhya Pradesh and make it a mini Ooty," said B. Venkateshwarlu.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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