ROCK PAINTINGS

To access the 49 rock painting sites in the Kakai-Kandao, and Sargah-sar valleys, it will take a good two-hour walk from the village of Balo Kallay.

The rock paintings of Kakai-kandao and Sargah-sar are believed to date from the Bronze Age, probably 1400 BC. Considered to be the oldest in the region, they consist of compositions rich in symbols, suggesting that these cultures lacked written language. These paintings depict deities and wild animals as well as hunters and warriors. Those on the rocky base of Sargha-sar are very impressive, and offer a strange vision, that of a human face. Some paintings are located at the base of a huge slab of rock, in a natural cavity, which appears like a mouth, while two other cavities create the illusion of two huge eyes. The colours used are bright: ochre, dark red, orange, yellow, yellow, white... the red colour being the universal symbol of life in prehistoric times.