HYDERABAD: A prehistoric painting, which is nearly 4,000 years old, has been discovered by a historian at Tandur in Kamareddy. The painting was discovered by Satyanarayana Dyavanapalli, when he was exploring the Sri Trilinga Rameshwara Swamy temple in the vicinity of Tandur village under Nagireddipt mandal in the district. He found the painting on the top of a hillock called Veerannakucha, located around one km away from the temple.
On top of the hillock there is small shrine. “When I saw the roof of the shrine, I was shocked to find a big painting on its ceiling. The painting was drawn in red ochre lines,” Dyavanapalli said.From his expertise, he was able to figure out that the roof of the shrine was chiselled from a nearby cave to which the painting was originally drawn. The slab was placed on the present shrine.
“The painting depicts a person’s legs in leaping position, and right hand in swinging sword position while the left one is swinging in balancing position. The chest is shown broad and the head with a line projecting outward. On the whole, the painting appears like that of a virile person. This appears to be the exact reason why subsequent people started calling the hillock as Veerannakucha,” the historian pointed out.
The artist of the painting may have applied a metal tool, probably one made of iron, to grind lime to prepare background for the painting and to pound ochre colour pigments to draw the painting in lines.The area has other traces of prehistoric civilisations. “The eastern fringe of the hillock has displaced boulders used as enclosure of megalithic burials. Another adjacent hillock has neolithic cup hole,” he opined and attributed the reason behind the settlement of people to geographical formations and availability of Manjeera water in abundance.