Damaidi Rock Carvings

Damaidi Rock Carvings

The Damaidi Rock Carvings are a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Damaidi Rock Carvings are located in Zhongwei City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. The rock art belt covers an area of about 450 square kilometers, with more than 10,000 prehistoric rock carvings preserved. Within a 6-square-kilometer primitive environment, there are 8,532 individual rock art images, averaging 1,422 images per square kilometer—over 140 times the internationally recognized standard for a "major region" of world rock art, making it a global phenomenon. According to the internationally used limonite dating method, experts have determined that the earliest Damaidi Rock Carvings date back 13,000 to 10,000 years, the middle period around 10,000 to 4,000 years ago, with the oldest carvings created between the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages.

The content of the Damaidi Rock Carvings is rich, mostly symbolic representations of objects, along with a small number of iconic images and symbols, reflecting the lives, production, economic conditions, psychological activities, and living environments of ancient people. The carvings were mainly made through chiseling and hammering, yet they are exquisitely crafted, with simple yet vivid imagery. Compared to other famous rock art sites around the world, the most distinctive feature of Damaidi is its profound richness—it reflects the passionate lives, beautiful aspirations, and intense emotions of China’s ancient ancestors from multiple perspectives. In areas densely packed with carvings, nearly every stone bears rock art, many even layered over previous ones, creating a strong sense of depth. Another notable feature is the sheer quantity: while renowned cave rock art sites in Europe contain only a limited number—ranging from over 100 to just over 300, none exceeding 1,000—the rock art in Australia and Africa, though numerous, is scattered. According to the standards of the International Federation of Rock Art Organizations (IFRAO) under UNESCO, a region with 10,000 images per 1,000 square kilometers can be considered a key rock art area. The Damaidi Rock Carvings, however, are densely concentrated within a 15-square-kilometer area, featuring over 3,000 groups of carvings and 8,453 individual images, averaging over 200 groups per square kilometer—more than 20 times the international benchmark for a "major distribution area," truly making it one of the most significant such sites in the world.

The Damaidi Rock Carvings have garnered significant attention due to the possibility that they could push back the origin of Chinese writing by 5,000 years. Although this theory remains unconfirmed, one thing is certain—the Damaidi Rock Carvings are a grand chronicle of ancient nomadic peoples. Damaidi is located northwest of the Shuidonggou Paleolithic Site in Lingwu, Ningxia. The lower cultural layer of the Shuidonggou Site dates back 40,000 to 15,000 years, belonging to the Late Pleistocene epoch of the Quaternary period. Traces of the Shuidonggou ancestors have been found extending through the Helan Mountains and the Weining North Mountains all the way to Lake Baikal in Siberia and the upper reaches of the Yenisei River—a migration route confirmed by archaeological discoveries in the early 1930s. The Helan and Weining North Mountains were important northbound passages for ancient peoples, and Damaidi served as a key stop along this route. People often rested, prepared for expeditions, hunted, and created rock carvings here, documenting their daily lives and productive activities.

On October 7, 2019, the Damaidi Rock Carvings were included in the eighth batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units.

Further Reading:

· Eighth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units