Pithora is a ritualistic painting done on the walls by the Rathwa and Bhilala tribes who live in central Gujarat. The painting are categorised by seven horses representing the seven hills around the area bordering Gujarat and Madya Pradesh inhabited by Rathwa community. The paintings depict scenes from the everyday life of the community, including people, animals like elephants, arms, musical instruments, images of festivals, celebrations, and weddings. Pithora paintings are also ritualistic paintings and many of these paintings are religious paintings for different occasion and purposes.The roots of the Pithora paintings can be traced to the cave paintings, more than thousands of years old.
Reconstruction of Faces of Indus Valley People
A team of 15 scientists from the UK, Korea, and India have successfully reconstructed the faces of two persons belonging to the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) age. This project under the partly supported by a grant of the National Geographic Society. The team was led by WJ Lee (affiliated to National Forensic Service Seoul Institute, Seoul, South Korea) and Vasant Shinde (affiliated to Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune, India). The two people whose facial reconstructions are done are among the 37 individuals who were found buried in the 4,500-year-old Rakhigarhi cemetery. Rakhigarhi is a village in Hisar District in the state of Haryana in India. It is situated 150 kilometres to the northwest of Delhi. The bodies here were found during an excavation project done between the year 2013 and 2016. The scientists used craniofacial reconstruction (CFR) procedure and computed tomography (CT) data to reconstruct the two Rakhigarhi skulls (A1 BR02 and A2 BR36). The 3-D video representing the faces of the two facial reconstructed individuals appeared to have Caucasian features with hawk-shaped and Roman noses. This is the first attempt to unveil scientifically accurate representations of actual facial morphology of the people of IVC. They claim that it is an accurate facial representation of the people from the IVC. The study was published in the Anatomical Science International Journal.
The Indus Valley Civilization, which is more than 8,000 years old, is one of the oldest civilisations on Earth. Evidences obtained from the archaeological remains from this ancient society have helped researchers learn many things about the people of the Indus Valley. But there is not much evidence as to with Indus valley people looked like. So, the development is seen as a major breakthrough but it cannot be termed as a generic conclusion. More investigation of graves and anthropological data is needed to form a comprehensive account on the subject.