Silk Road Photo Gallery - Helan Mountains Rock Art (Yinchuan)

About 45 km from Yinchuan's city cenntre, the Helan Mountains are famous for its prehistoric rock art. Over 2,000 paintings have been found that showed human and natural images, such as hunting, warfare, entertainment, and dancing. Believed to have been carved from between 3000 and 10,000 years ago, it is now quite easy to access with walkways along the valley floor.

It's a circular route as well so once you're done one side of the bank, you can head across to go back on the other side.

Given their exposure to the elements for thousands of years, the carvings may not be obvious to the eyes, but authorities have placed red dot stickers to help you find them and information boards on the images' meaning.

This is a good place to spend half your day, and you can combine with the Xixia Mausoleum for the second part of your day into a full day excursion from Yinchuan.

There is also a museum to give you a bit more background on the geography and history of the area. Overall, it's a good place to visit. While many places around the world have prehistoric rock art, the concentration of these works here is quite unique. I haven't been to another place that had so many examples in such a small area.