Place · petroglyph cave · India
Edakkal caves
The Neolithic rock-cut shelter in Wayanad district, Kerala, formed by a cleft between two massive boulders, containing petroglyphs cut around 6000 BCE — human figures, animals, geometric symbols — with later Brahmi and Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions dating to the 2nd century CE added beside them. Edakkal preserves a continuous epigraphic record from pre-literate to literate periods on the same stones — literacy entering a landscape that already had images. Fred Fawcett rediscovered the caves in 1890. The Brahmi inscriptions are among the oldest written records in Kerala and mention a Pallava king.
- Function
- Archaeology & heritage
- Tradition
- Archaeological record
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 11.672, 76.227
Connections (1)
- AnalogueLadakh petroglyphs
Ladakh's petroglyph fields and the Edakkal cleft in Wayanad are three thousand kilometres apart and show the same sequence: an old marking practice, then literacy or a new religion cut on the same rock by the same technique. Stupas appear among the ibex in Ladakh; Brahmi and Tamil-Brahmi appear among the figures in Wayanad. The rock keeps both layers without distinguishing them.
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Sources
Edakkal Caves, Wayanad
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