According to the Helan County Chronicle, there are 46 peaks in the 200-km long mountain range. A tablet of the Qing Dynasty records that Helan Mountain possesses 72 strategic passes. These provided favorable conditions for cliff painting.

The Helan cliff paintings are a precious cultural treasure created through thousands of years by nomadic tribes living in northern China, including the Huns, Xianbei, Tujue (Turks), Tubo, Dangxiang and Mongolians, which provide a large number of detailed materials for the study of the history, culture, art, religion and ethnic relations of these nationalities.

So far, 20 cliff-painting spots have been identified in the Helan Mountains. Rubbings have been made of more than 2,000 paintings, including over 20,000 individual designs. It is rare in the world to see so many cliff paintings concentrated in such a dense area, with such rich contents and high academic value.

The cliff paintings feature queer composition and weird images in both individual and compound pictures. The individual ones include figures, faces, animals and plants as well as celestial bodies, implicative symbols and Western Xia characters. The compound pictures show the scenes of herding, hunting, fighting, animals in groups, dancing, acrobatics, the genital organs and sexual intercourse.

An "Animal Husbandry" picture cut on the Lesser Western Peak near Helankou includes more than 50 kinds of living things. The human beings, cows, dogs and horses in diversified forms inspire wonder. Another picture named "Mother and Son" is especially attractive because of its primitive features. Also, the content is different.

As a product of human beings in remote antiquity, the cliff paintings are usually realistic, although sometimes they exaggerate or deform. The cliff paintings combine simplicity, strength, nature and awkwardness, shocking the hearts of the people.

Helan cliff paintings are among the third batch of cultural relics subject to state protection. On cliffs at both sides of the valley extending 1,000 meters, there are altogether 400 paintings showing human faces, animals, the sun, moon and stars and the God of Sun, as well as stone inscriptions from the Stone Ages, through the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period to the Western Xia Dynasty.

However, the Helan cliff paintings are now threatened by climatic and topographical changes, as well as pollution and oxidization. What's more, they are being destroyed by human activities such as hill cleaving, road building, quarrying and construction. Some were carried home by local farmers to build the foundations for their houses; some were pried up for private collection, and some were scribbled on or rubbings were taken without due care.

All these activities will reduce the opportunity to study the pictures. Experts have called on the entire country and the relevant departments to urgently undertake efforts to protect these cliff paintings that can never be produced again.

(CIIC)