Messages on rocks

People in the prehistoric era carved pictographs on cliffs and rocks to record what they saw and how they lived. Such hierograms, known as cliff paintings and carvings, have been found in abundance in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region in Northwest China. The mysterious pictorial recordings, before the invention of writing, form an encyclopedia for the studies of many aspects of prehistoric communities. An exhibition now on at Wuxi Museum in the city in Jiangsu province, provides a glimpse of this chapter of primitive art. It shows rubbings of cliff paintings, dating to different periods of time, from the collection of Ningxia Museum. Images on show include human figures and faces, hunting scenes, animals, hand impressions, symbols and other categories of rock art. In between the lines and patterns, a viewer can sense the creators' urge to make their presence felt in the world. The exhibition ends on June 13.

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