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Located 12 km from Sultan Bathery, Edakkal caves is situated in the Ambukuthi Hills. in Wayanad district.
While hunting trip to Wayanad in 1890, Fred- Fawcett, the then superintendent of police of the Malabar District, happened to see a Neolithic Celt (stone axe or chisel) recovered from the coffee estate of Colin Mackenzie. An enthusiast in prehistory, Fawcett made local enquiries and went round exploring the Wayanad high ranges. In the course of his rambles he was shown the Edakkal rock-shelter situated on the western side of Edakkalmala. He identified the site as a habitat of Neolithic (i.e. late Stone Age, c4000BC to c1700BC) people on the basis of the nature of representations on the cave walls, which appeared to him as engravings made of Neolithic Celts. It was an exciting discovery, as these were the first specimens of abraded drawings found in India.
Edakkal caves are two natural rock formationsm believed to have been formed by a large split in a huge rock. The two caves located at a height of 1000m on Ambukutty Mala near Ambalavayal can be accessed only by a 1 km trek trail from Edakkal. Edakkal literally means 'a stone in between'. Inside the cave is on two levels, the lower chamber measures about 18 feet long by 12 feet wide and 10 feet high and can be entered through an opening of 5 x 4 feet. A passage opposite the entrance leads upward to a small aperture in the roof through which one climbs up to the next storey whose interior is about 96 feet long, 22 feet wide, and 18 feet high. Light enters the cave through a big gap at the right-hand corner of the roof where the boulder does not touch the facing wall.
Inside, one finds ancient stone scripts, cave drawings and pictorial wall inscriptions of human and animal figures with peculiar head dresses, the swastik forms and symbols. Archaeologists consider these as one of the earliest centres of human habitation. Similar straight line cave drawings (considered 7000 years old) have been found only in Stiriya in the European Alps and a few rocky places in Africa. The drawings at Edakkal depict the human figures, stars, wheels, bows, knives, palm trees etc. Edakkal rock engravings stand out distinct among the magnitude of prehistoric visual archives of paintings and graphic signs all over the world.
Significance :
World's Richest Pictographic Gallery of its kind Archaeologists consider these as one of the earliest centres of human habitation.
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