Fig. 146.—Petroglyphs at Chandeshwar, India.
At a point about two miles and a half south of Dwara-Hath, and twelve miles north of the military station of Ranikhet in Kumaon, the bridle-road leading from the plains through Naini Tal and Ranikhet to Baijnath, and thence on to the celebrated shrine of Bidranath, is carried through a narrow gorge at the mouth of which is a temple sacred to Mahadeo, ... which is locally known by the name of Chandeshwar.
About two hundred yards south of the temple, toward the middle of the defile, rises a rock at an angle of forty-five degrees presenting a surface upon which, in a space measuring fourteen feet in height by twelve in breadth, more than two hundred cups are sculptured. They vary from an inch and a half to six inches in diameter and from half an inch to an inch in depth, and are arranged in groups composed of approximately parallel rows.
The cups are mostly of the simple types and only exceptionally surrounded by single rings or connected by grooves.
SIBERIA.
N. S. Shtukin (a) referring to certain picture-writings on the cliffs of the Yenesei river, in the Quarterly Isvestia of the Imperial Geographical Society for 1882, says: “These are figured, but are not particularly remarkable, except as being the work of invaders from the far south, perhaps Persians. Camels and pheasants are among the animals represented.”
Philip John von Strahlenberg, in An Historico-Geographical Description of the North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia, etc., reported inscriptions relating to the chase, on the banks of the river Yenesei. He says of one: “It takes its characteristic features from the natural history of the region; and we may suppose it to embrace rude representations of the Siberian hare, the cabarda or musk deer and other known quadrupeds.”
He also furnishes a transcript of inscriptions found by him on a precipitous rock on the river Irtish. This rock, which is 36 feet high, is isolated. It has four sides, one of which faces the water and has a number of tombs or sepulchral caves beneath. All of the four faces have rude representations of the human form, and other unintelligible characters are drawn in red colors in a durable kind of pigment, which is found to be almost indestructible and is much used for rock inscriptions.
Prof. Terrien de Lacouperie, op. cit., makes the following remarks: