In 2018, Zhang and other rock art experts came to Suizhou to discover more about the rocks and their holes. They compiled a report that included detailed descriptions and images of 59 rocks and 100 pieces of rock art, each of which was given a digital profile.
The rocks also caught attention from abroad.
Determining the historical period in which the inscriptions were created has posed a challenge using conventional archaeological research or micro-corrosion dating.
In the summer of 2017, Robert Bednarik, president of the Australia-based International Federation of Rock Art Organizations, came to Suizhou to see the objects in person.
Based on micro-corrosion analysis, he found that the earliest could be 4,500 years old.
Wang Wenhu, a scholar from Suizhou, thinks the Sun God is the Emperor Yan Di, a legendary ancestor of the Chinese nation. People in Suizhou traditionally worship the Yan Emperor.
In March, a proposal was at the two sessions political meetings by Zhou Hongyu, a professor at Huazhong Normal University and a deputy to the National People's Congress, to apply for designation of the rock art as a world cultural landscape heritage, as he said it could provide clues to the origin of Chinese civilization.
Currently, the Shennong tourist zone is being developed under the standard of a 4-A tourist site. The zone now has a prehistory life experiment park and a cultural park that combines education and leisure.
