General Cliff Rock Paintings

General Cliff Rock Paintings^[2] or Jiangjunya Petroglyphs^[3] (simplified Chinese: 将军崖岩画; traditional Chinese: 將軍崖岩畫; pinyin: Jiāngjūn yá Yánhuà), also known as Jiangjunya Rock Paintings,^[4] are images carved into the rocks of the General Cliff (将军崖), located in Jinping, 14 kilometers far west from Lianyungang.^[5]

General Cliff Rock Paintings

Jiangjunya Petroglyphs Shown within Jiangsu Show map of Jiangsu Jiangjunya Petroglyphs Jiangjunya Petroglyphs (China) Show map of China
Location	Lianyungang[1]
Coordinates	34°32′10″N 119°7′47″E
History
Periods	Neolithic

Discovery and research

The site of General Cliff Rock Paintings was discovered in 1979.^[6] In the 1980s, people found three petroglyphs of several square meters in the suburb of General Cliff in Lianyungang, Jiangsu, which were then hailed as "Oriental Book from Heaven" (东方天书) because of their obscure contents.^[7]

Many experts and scholars have confirmed that the rock paintings of the General Cliff are Neolithic works, which has become a consensus in Chinese historiography circle, but there are different speculations on the makers of these rock paintings, the time of production, the meanings of the images and the specific purposes.^[8]

One view is that the General Cliff Rock Paintings are about 10,000 years old,^[9] and are the oldest rock paintings ever discovered in China.^[10]

Conservation

In 1988, the site of General Cliff Rock Paintings was included in the third batch of the list of Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level^[11] by the State Council of the People's Republic of China.^[12]

References

1. "Rice Ecology and Ecological Relations: An Ontological Analysis of the Jiangjunya Masks and Crop Images from China's East Coast". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 10 June 2019.
2. "Celestial Scriptures". CCTV.com. 2005-02-22.
3. Terence Meaden; Herman Bender (27 February 2020). Anthropomorphic Images in Rock Art Paintings and Rock Carvings. Archaeopress. pp. 124–. ISBN 978-1-78969-358-4.
4. "The Jiangjunya rock paintings". www.lyg.gov.cn. 2016-12-23.
5. Paul G. Marinos (1997). Engineering Geology and the Environment. CRC Press. pp. 2569–. ISBN 978-90-5410-880-1.
6. "关注"岩画"："东方天书"——连云港将军崖岩画". CCTV.com. 2004-04-12.
7. "Oriental Book from Heaven". China Network Television. 2010-01-26.
8. Liu Zhengying (2006). New Essays on He Tu Luo Shu. Xuelin Publishing House. pp. 169–. ISBN 978-7-80730-127-1.
9. "Take a high-speed rail tour to Lianyungang". Yangtse Evening Post. 2020-12-11.
10. He Linying (1 June 2015). Study of Clerical Script inscriptions from the two Han dynasties. China Social Sciences Press. pp. 94–. ISBN 978-7-5161-6326-9.
11. 300 Questions on Ancient Art. Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House. 1989. pp. 199–. ISBN 978-7-5325-0671-2.
12. ""Oriental Book from Heaven" in Lianyungang". China Network Television. 2005-03-11.