Ladakh Archaeology

About

The Archive

Ladakh has a beautifully rich and diverse heritage, which points to a long, mostly unknown history. This heritage is however difficult to access, and very little-studied. The purpose of this catalogue is to enable more research on Ladakh’s past, by unlocking access to a uniquely vast database.

This website was launched in a first version in 2016, providing access to about 30,000 images of fortifications and temple ruins. The second (current) version was released in 2023, with a library of 160,000+ images encompassing all types of heritage sites. In the early state of this second release, the images are provided raw; descriptions, bibliography and maps of the sites will be added over time. In the meantime, basic descriptions and bibliographies can already be found in the book series edited with INTACH. This database is intended to grow over time by including images of further sites and from further contributors.

The archive is meant for research as well as conservation by preserving the memory of this heritage: over the years, a number of sites presented in it have been destroyed or heavily damaged. Facing destructions that are ever wider, faster and unrelenting, it is our duty to document to the best of our abilities and in a promptly manner as many sites as possible, before they vanish under the attack of sledgehammers and pneumatic drills: a site destroyed before it could be documented is doomed to remain unknown forever. 

This material is an open access effort distributed under the Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0): images are freely accessible for as long as 1) their source is properly cited, 2) it is for non-commercial projects, 3) the images and their derived content are also distributed under the same open-access terms.

Contributors

Quentin Devers

Quentin Devers is a researcher at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CRNS, Paris), within the Research Centre for East Asian Civilisations (CRCAO, Paris) & the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP). He heads the research programme Archaeological Exploration of Ladakh (AEL), which aims at documenting all the types of monuments & remains, from all the periods, in all the regions, valleys and villages of Ladakh. The AEL comprises five components:

  1. The publication of a series of volumes on the heritage of Ladakh in collaboration with the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH, Delhi).
  2. The study of the funerary cave of the Old Lady Spider, in co-direction with Veena Mushrif-Tripathy.
  3. The documentation and study of the rock art sites of Ladakh in collaboration with Tashi Ldawa, Viraf Mehta, Choldan Gasha, and Sonam Wangchuk.
  4. Research into the overall heritage of Ladakh through close collaborations (Nils Martin, Samara Broglia de Moura, Ai Nishida, etc) in order to understand its rich past.
  5. The publication of the present online archive.

See the AEL page for more information

LadakhArchaeology on ig

Apricots were one of the very few fruits traditionally cultivated in the high altitude desert that is Ladakh. Historically, the diet was made essentially of meat, diary, and barley. In a land where cultivable land is so sparse and the winter so long (i.e. agricultural products have to be generated in a short time and in enough quantity to survive many months at a time), vegetables were not grown as only barley could warrant the necessary food intake to endure the winter months. Apricots are one of the very few produce in the fruit/vegetable category to be part of the ladakhi diet. This year took place the highest semi-marathon on a frozen lake at an altitude of 4225m and at -25°C at Pangong lake in Ladakh, setting a new world record. The goal was to bring attention to the concrete effects of global warming in Ladakh, where glaciers and iced water bodies retreat every year. The same group of apricot trees in spring and autumn. After looking at yesterday's pictures, I went through my spring collection and was sooo excited to see that I had almost the same angle from the spring with the apricots in blossoms! Autumn colours are so pretty! The volume on Nubra is finally available on Amazon! When it comes to heritage, Nubra is a record-breaking region: it shelters the highest petroglyphs in the world, the largest rock art site of Ladakh, some of the oldest Buddhist remains of Ladakh, the most highly-situated fortress and watchtower of Ladakh (relative to the valley floor), etc. This heritage, small and big, serves as the basis for reconstructing the incredibly rich and vibrant history of the region in an unprecedented manner! Sound up for the story. Preview of on-going research conducted by the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute (Pune), and the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS, Paris). More information and videos to come! Tiny carvings of feline figures (perhaps leopards), at the site of Tsokretak, between Yulkam and Tirisa (Nubra). They are just about 3cm in length, making them the smallest images of such animals in Ladakh. Buddhist carving at Sumur (Nubra). This stone Buddha is located near the area known as Mani Skubum, and is datable to the general period of the 8th-13th centuries. There are unfortunately no comprehensive studies on the Buddhist carvings of Ladakh and the Western Himalayas in general. As a result, given the absence of detailed chronology on the evolution of these carvings, it is difficult to date them more precisely than that. Sogma Khar is one of the most stunning fortresses of Ladakh. It stands high up in the mountain, 500m above the village of Sumur (Nubra), making it the most highly situated fortress relative to the valley floor. It has a unique double rampart design, in which the space betwen the two ramparts is empty of constructions. The outer rampart is about 320m in length, one of the longest in Ladakh. It is flanked by seven strongly-built circular towers, with the addition of a quadrangular bastion that serves as the main gate. Another circular tower and secondary quadrangular gate defend the inner rampart. The two outpost towers defending the approach to the fortress of Sogma Khar above Sumur (Nubra). We will see this spectacular fortress more in detail in the next post. Carvings of Bactrian camels in Nubra. Several appear to date from the Bronze Age (≈3rd-2nd millennia BCE). In these depictions, we can see domesticated camels put to use, some ridden, others led by humans on foot or on horseback. These tend to indicate that camels were already used by caravans between the Tarim Basin (Khotan, Yarkand, etc) and Ladakh (see previous post on an overview of this wild route). Nubra is famous for its Bactrian camels. These animals were once used by caravans for the trade between the Tarim Basin (Khotan, Yarkand, etc) and Ladakh.