About
Thalpan lies across the Indus from Chilas, near the Thalpan Bridge, and is one of the richest rock-art sites along the Karakoram Highway. Carvings here range from prehistoric hunting scenes to Buddhist-era stupas, inscriptions, and sacred figures. One of the most striking carvings is a large boulder showing the Sibi Jataka, a Buddhist birth story. Other boulders show Bodhisattva Maitreya, the Buddha under the Tree of Enlightenment, and lion pillars. A prominent rock known as Altar Rock is also decorated with many carvings and may have been a pre-Buddhist sanctuary. The petroglyphs are part of a vast heritage of tens of thousands of carvings in the Diamer region that have been recorded by German and Pakistani researchers, and many are under threat from the Diamer-Bhasha Dam reservoir.