CARVED BEFORE THE ICE MELTED A Multi-Register Interpretive Analysis of the Ratnagiri Petroglyph Corpus

The Ratnagiri petroglyph corpus — carved on laterite plateaus of the Konkan coast, Maharashtra, between approximately 10,000 and 30,000 years before the present — is one of the most significant and least studied repositories of prehistoric symbolic expression in the world. Existing scholarship has focused on faunal documentation and ecological reconstruction. This paper proposes a multi-register interpretive framework spanning five analytical dimensions: proto-notation and early writing, astronomical encoding, cosmographic world-modelling, afterlife and threshold cosmology, and daily life documentation.

Forty selected exhibits from sites including Devihasol, Mervi (Pawas), Aaragaon, Rundhe Tali, Jambahrun, and unnamed locations across Ratnagiri and Rajapur districts argue that the corpus operates within a coherent shared symbolic grammar — one whose structural elements persist without interruption into the iconographic, astronomical, and ritual traditions of classical Bharatiya civilisation. The paper further proposes that the corpus contains the earliest known representations of: the Pashupati/Shiva axis-figure; the Master of Animals; the mandala/yantra cosmogram; the trishula; the couple-on-bovine motif; the sacred footprint tradition; the crow-psychopomp afterlife schema; the nakshatra observation system; the lunisolar calendar reconciliation; the Pisces vernal equinox marker; and — most significantly — the oldest known geographic map in the world, encoding the subcontinent as an elephant with faunal distribution markers, mountain ranges, human habitation zones, and possibly adjacent landmass knowledge.

The paper concludes that these engravings are not impromptu musings but a deliberate encoding of ancient wisdom on the laterite floor, and issues a formal conservation emergency appeal.

Keywords: Ratnagiri petroglyphs, Konkan rock art, proto-writing, archaeoastronomy, Pashupati, mandala origins, nakshatra, lunisolar calendar, prehistoric cartography, Bharatiya civilisation continuity, conservation urgency.