Ketavaram Caves

Ketavaram is a Village in Orvakal Mandal in Kurnool District in Andhra Pradesh State in India. It is  located 6.3 km distance from its Mandal Main Town Orvakal and 14.2 km distance from its District Main City Kurnool.The Ketavaram rock painting's are dated back to the Paleolithic era. Among the ancient rock-art sites, this is Andhra Pradesh’s most prominent one. These paintings  are created centuries ago and located  in rock shelters. 

The paintings were mostly simple line drawings, all in red, depicting scenes from regular life—hunting, gathering, scenes of merriment. Experts believe these were made around 10,000 years ago and hold that the pigments were derived from vegetable juice, tree milk and animal fat. The brushes were probably simple wooden sticks with animal (possibly goat) hair.

Here, the rare drawings may look faded, yet they continue to hold the intrigue of the tourists. And here’s where you get the first real glimpse of the rocks – the beauty of nature that only gets better and even more awe-inspiring once you get back to Orvakal.

Along a stretch of rocks at Ketavaram, paintings dating from Paleolithic age have been found and these sets of drawings have been dated down the ages, from realistic drawings of large deer by hunter gathers, through symbolic humans of the Iron Age and to the handprints of more recent pilgrims. This can be called one of the world’s longest sequences of rock art. Animal like deer, hyena, monkey, dog, tiger humped bulls, fox, rabbit reptiles like the lizard  a bird and human figures are also depicted.

This place is famous for rock paintings on basalt rocks by the ancient man or the early human. These paintings tell us existence of early humans is lived here once upon a time.  Systematic excavations at the sites may yield evidence belonging to various culture periods particularly the Neolithic phase, sources said. However, Ketavaram rock art caves, about one kilometre distance from Ketavaram village in Orvakal mandal in  Kurnool district, have caves in which prehistoric people drew paintings on the walls by using natural colours made from earth, herbs and flowers.It has totally 13 rock shelters 10 have paintings. 

These paintings dating from Paleolithic age have been found and these sets of drawings have been dated down the ages, from realistic drawings of large deer by hunter gatherers, through symbolic humans of the Iron age and to the handprints of more recent pilgrims.This can be called one of the world’s longest sequences of rock art.

Historians claim that the paintings were done 10,000-30,000 years ago. It has 100 human and animal figures drawn on basalt rocks, as the art belongs to period of Mesolithic to megalithic. Ten shelters bearing red and white paintings.  Though paintings have survived the vagaries of nature for over 5,000 years, it might not be so in future with increased human activity disturbing the ambience. 

Rock art in India is found distributed through the length and breadth of the entire country in a rather similar context but with regional variations. India is fortunate to be home to large concentrations of this art form, an important cultural heritage. Rock art characterized by the presence of writings in Brahmi, Kharoshti, Shankha and even Nagari scripts have been grouped as rock art of the Historic period in India.