TTT NEWS NETWORK
BHOPAL | 8 SEPTEMBER 2025
A Landscape of Forgotten Marks One day, the rock art sites around Chanderi may find their way to UNESCO’s World Heritage list. Yet, their story would remain incomplete unless studied as part of the larger narrative of the Chambal belt. These hidden shelters, scattered around rivers, cliffs, and forests, hold some of the earliest expressions of the human mind.
Nanoun: Life in Prehistoric Strokes
Life in Prehistoric Strokes On a rocky ledge above the Urr River—locally called the Urvashi—lies the Nanoun rock shelter. Thousands of years ago, hunter-gatherers took refuge here, perhaps from torrential rain, and painted their lives onto stone.
The walls show deer, bulls, elephants, and even a mysterious striped animal—possibly a zebra or giraffe. Human figures hunt, dance, and drag game. Beehives hang from trees. Painted in ochre, orange, and brown, the figures evolve from simple stick lines to fuller forms, mirroring the gradual sharpening of human imagination.
Mamoun: From Hunting to Warfare
A hill with two vivid rock shelters. Painted with red haematite, the scenes are brighter and more detailed—men hunting, gathering, and, for the first time, fighting. Some figures ride horses, spears in hand, while others arrange geometric diagrams resembling yantras. These diagrams suggest a leap in cognitive development: humans no longer merely depicted what they saw but began expressing abstract ideas.
One shelter here houses a contemporary shrine, with an idol carved into the rock itself. While living faith keeps the site active, it also threatens the ancient paintings—layers of sindoor could easily consume them. Mamoun itself is rich with fragments of 10th–11th century temples, adding another layer to the landscape.
Aam Kho: The Remote Treasure
The Remote Treasure The most difficult to reach is Aam Kho, 26 km from Chanderi. Guided by tribal locals, the path winds past a Vishnu shrine, through forest trails, and across a river that can only be crossed at a natural stone bridge. After climbing a rocky hill, the art finally reveals itself: a herd of bulls in single file, fading but still majestic. More animal figures scatter across the walls, and locals insist that countless other shelters remain hidden in the hills.
Stone Tools and Continuity of Life:
Near many of these shelters lie early and middle Stone Age tools—microliths, flakes, axes, and choppersmade of quartzite. These findings suggest that the Chanderi region preserves a full continuum: from thehunter-gatherer era to settled agriculture, and eventually to village life.
Chanderi and the UNESCO Tentative List:
In February 2024, “Rock Art Sites of the Chambal Valley” entered UNESCO’s tentative World Heritage list, covering nine clusters across Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. For Chanderi’s rock shelters, inclusion in this narrative is crucial. Without it, they risk remaining footnotes while the town is remembered primarily for its sarees.
Preserving the Hidden Heritage:
Beyond Nanoun, Mamoun, and Aam Kho, more than a dozen mapped sites dot the Chanderi landscape—Belan, Bharki, Ramnagar, and even near the temple site of Thubon ji. Some are prehistoric, others historic. All tell a story of human resilience, adaptation, and creativity.
Until a comprehensive study secures them a place in world heritage, explorers, scholars, and local guides will continue to uncover Chanderi’s wonders, keeping alive the whispers of our earliest ancestors etched in stone.
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