The Jiangjunya Cliff Painting is located on the western cliff of the Maer Peak of Jinping Mountain, southeast of Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province.
The western cliff of the Maer Peak is over 22 meters long, 15 meters wide and covers an area of 330 square meters. Engraved on the slope of the black-rocked cliff, the Jiangjunya Cliff painting, which is over 20 meters tall and 11 meters wide, was discovered in 1979. In front of the three groups of paintings is a stone, which is independent from the cliff.
Lying in the west, the first group of paintings is four meters long and 2.8 meters wide and contains about 10 paintings depicting human faces, two paintings of animals and 13 of grass and seedlings. South of the relics is the second group, which is eight meters long and six meters wide. Some of the paintings resemble animal-like faces, while others are of pots with one or two concentric circles; some of them have as many as 21 painted rays (or as little as 14). To the east of the relics is the third group of paintings that resembles the works of the second group. In the middle of each group stand a 4.2-meter-tall stone and two smaller ones at 2.2 meters. Their surfaces are of a symmetrical, round pattern, which may link the relics to the sacrificial rites of the ancient Dongyi people who regarded stones as their gods in ancient times. They are of great significance to the study of history, archaeology, ethnology and art history.
The paintings are about one cm thick with uninhibited lines and vivid images. The 13 seedlings of the first group are considered very rare. The painting entitled S represented human beings dancing. The pictographic symbols are reminiscent of the ones before the Shang Dynasty (17th- 11thcentury BC). Some of the images depict types of farm and fishing tools, while others are of animals and birds, including numbers, which perhaps represented prayers for better crops recited at sacrificial ceremonies.
To date, the cliff paintings are the only ones discovered that reflect China's primitive agricultural society.
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