Rock Paintings of Hua Mountain
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How it came to be
The Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape is a group of 38 rock art sites along the Zuo River and its tributary the Ming River in the border region of Guangxi, southern China. The paintings were made on sheer karst cliffs between about the 5th century BC and the 2nd century AD. They are thought to show the life and rituals of the Luoyue people of the valley, regarded as ancestors of the Zhuang.
At Huashan in Ningming County, the main painted area on the west bank of the Ming River is about 170 m wide and 40 m high, 30 to 90 m above the water. It holds about 1,900 countable images in some 110 groups. Human figures are mostly 60 to 150 cm tall, and one reaches 3 m. The pigment is red ochre (haematite), reportedly mixed with animal glue and blood.
Besides people and animals, the paintings show bronze drums, knives, swords, bells and boats, and are read as ceremonies of the bronze drum culture once widespread in southern China. UNESCO calls the site the only remaining witness to that tradition. It was inscribed in 2016.
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