Imagination runs sky high in interpreting rock carvings

Rock art. [Photo by Cui Jia/China Daily]

There are herds of camels, sheep and wolves, human figures apparently on skis, and, the biggest surprise of all, a flying object that resembles an aircraft or a rocket. These are the ancient pictographs of Altay prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, which is endowed with one of the richest collections of ancient rock art in China.

There are at least 114 rock carving or drawing sites and 11 pictographs, according to the latest national cultural relic survey, completed four years ago.

In one case, archeologists discovered a site in Habahe county of a pictograph that seems to depict a flying object resembling an aircraft, says Liu Shihe, an official with the county's information office. Archeologists are still baffled by the pictograph, he says.

"Some people say it's a scorpion, but I tend to think it is something that has been conjured up from the imagination," says Liu, who has a keen personal interest in rock art.

Preliminary analysis suggests the pictograph is about 10,000 years old, he says.

Liu Cheng, an archeologist with Northwest University in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, first visited the pictograph sites in Altay six years ago after having spent nearly 10 years studying the Kangjia Shimenzi rock carving in Xinjiang.

Liu believes one of the important implications of the paintings on stone outcrops relates to belief systems.

"Those pictographs were located in areas that were very easily accessible, but nobody has left a single trace on them over thousands of years. I cannot imagine there is any other reason than that they were regarded as highly sacred."

However, identifying what pictographs signify and their age is extremely difficult, he says.

Liu, who plans another visit to Habahe county soon, says he will take a group of art students with him to determine what the pictographs depict.

"You need a lot of imagination to work out what they represent."