Mountain Helan Rock Art is located at the entrance of Mountain Helan, Helan County.
Mountain Helan is a large range of mountains which stretch over 250 kilometers in length. At the eastern foot of Mountain Helan both in its interior and exterior, archeologists have discovered thousands of ancient rock carvings. These images depict daily rituals, such as hunting, pasturing, dancing, copulation, battle, and even sacrifice. They were created by the prehistoric tribes who inhabited the area and are dated between 3,000 to 10,000 years in age. Many of the rock carvings found in Mountain Helan regions depict images of cattle, sheep, horse, camel, tiger, leopard and a large variety of animals, including a wide range of abstract syllables and primitive designs, which preveal the cultural connotations of ancient people of nature worship, production worship, totem worship and ancestor worship. Mountain Helan Rock Art is the cultural treasury to study culture history, religion history and primitive arts history of Chinese people.
Conveniently located a mere 58km from Yinchuan City, the “Helan Kou Valley” is a scenic zone with its flowing natural stream, harbored between the sheer rocks of Mountain Helan. Unique in its beauty, Helan Kou Valley is home for over 5,000 rock carvings scattered among interior and exterior walls. Among this collection of rock art, there are over 700 facial images, famous at their artist forms and expressions, making Helan Kou Valley a unique and important historical site in world rock art and attracting thousands of tourists world-wide yearly.
Mountain Helan Rock Art has been placed on the list of the important historical sites given special protection at state levels. In 1997, it was listed in the directory of informal world cultural heritages sites by the International Rock Art Committee of UNESCO. |
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