An Indian amateur archaeologist has claimed to have discovered a prehistoric rock painting stretching up to 35 kilometres in the Garadha area of Bundi district (northwest India).
     "The rock painting stretches up to 35 kilometres, with its tail at Mandal dam, Bhilwara district and head at Banki village in Garadha area of the district," Om Prakash Sharma alias 'Kukki' said. The painting has images of human beings, animals such as tigers, panthers, antelopes and various antique tools, Kukki said, claiming that the painting dates back to nearly ten thousands years.
     There are 32 sites in the rock painting and are stretching over the basin of Mangli river, he said. Kukki claims the rock paintings could perhaps be the world's longest rock painting. But Narayan Vyas, the state project coordinator, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Bhopal, and who officially surveyed the rock painting sites, said that it could not be called as the world's longest rock painting. It looks that there is a series of prehistoric rock art sites spread over that area, but they are not connected together as a single painting, like Kukki is claiming.
     Kukki went to focus on discovering rock paintings only in 1995. Since then,  he said he has discovered over 78 sites of rock paintings in the Garadha area of the district adjoining to Bhilwara and Chittor districts of the state.

Edited from DNA India (19 December 2010)