Government school teacher reports prehistoric rock art site in Telangana's Jogulamba Gadwal

A new prehistoric rock art site has been discovered in Medikonda village of Jogulamba Gadwal district, inside a cave located atop a hillock, at a height of around 240 meters. The rock arts depict images of a large tiger-like animal, a stag with antlers, a small mouse deer-like animal, a hunting scene and two persons standing beside each other. The discovery has been reported by a government school teacher named Hanumannagiri Vemareddy along with his friends T Padmareddy and S Hanmatareddy, all of whom are members of the collective, Kottha Telangana Charitram (KTC).

Over the last few years, KTC has discovered various rock art sites across Telangana but rues the lack of interest in their protection by the Telangana government's Department of Heritage. Speaking to Express, KTC convener, Sriramoju Haragopal said that they have discovered around 26 rock art sites in Telangana since 2014 when the state was formed and in total there are at least 60 known rock art sites in the state. He said, "The sites discovered are from various districts, including, Khammam, Sircilla, Kothagudem, Siddipet, Ranga Reddy, Medchal, Nalgonda and Warangal. We inform about the discovery of the site to the heritage department but to no avail."

Haragopal also added, "The rock art sites in Telangana are threatened by granite mining. None of the departments concerned with issuing permissions for mining, be it forest, revenue, mining or any other department, bother to check whether the location where mining is proposed has any rock art site. The heritage department too is not bothered, even though they are the custodians. The negligence is epitomised at Pandavula gutta in Bhupalpally, which has many rock art sites. Just adjacent to these sites mining is taking place with all permissions from the government."