Pamir petroglyphs

The Langar settlement and the petroglyphs of Pamirs    

The colorful and picturesque Langar is located at the upper part of the Wakhan Corridor where the confluence of Wakhandarya and Pamir rivers create Panj River. Langar is famous with its granite rocks with variety petroglyphs – “the gallery of petroglyphs” consisting of more than 6 thousand pictures located above 2700-3500 m with various plots and ages: mountain goats, yaks, deer, hunters with dogs, archers, Buddhist buildings and so on. One of the favorite petroglyph of Pamiri people is the picture of the musical instrument rubab. It is believed that the picture of rubab depicts about the embodiment of human being and that’s why the pictures on stones remind us about people.

One of the interesting architectural plots is the picture of a religious staggered building mixed with the pictures of swastika and a headless demon flying over it. Probably such composition was painted not by accident nut on the contrary depicts about the intrusion of Buddhism in the territory of Badakhshan in the Kushan period and the evidence of it is the ruins of the monastery VI-VII c. several kilometers from Langar settlement in the village of Vrang.