Field guides / Gilgit-Baltistan / Kohistan Upper / Shatial Rock Carvings
Field guide · Heritage
Kohistan Upper
Kohistan Upper District · Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Shatial Rock Carvings
More than a thousand inscriptions and 700 rock carvings left by Silk Road travellers beside the Indus at Shatial, 60 km west of Chilas.
At Shatial, 60 km west of Chilas, old routes from Swat, Gilgit, Chilas and Chitral met at a crossing of the Indus, and the travellers who passed left their names on the rocks. More than 1,000 inscriptions and 700 petroglyphs cover the boulders by the Shatial bridge. Over 550 of the inscriptions are in Sogdian, written by merchants from Central Asia between the 3rd and 7th centuries, with a few in Bactrian, Middle Persian and Parthian. The longest is a merchant's prayer: Nanai-vandak, son of Narisaf, asks the spirit of the holy place to bring him swiftly to his destination and to find his brother in good health. Brahmi and Kharoshthi inscriptions show that Buddhist pilgrims revered the place too, and a large carved triptych shows a stupa and the Sibi Jataka. The carvings have been recorded in detail by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities' research unit for the rock carvings along the Karakoram Highway.
Why go
- ✦More than 1,000 inscriptions and 700 petroglyphs beside the Indus
- ✦Over 550 Sogdian inscriptions left by Silk Road merchants
- ✦A triptych of a stupa and the Sibi Jataka carved by Buddhist pilgrims
Visiting today
Shatial is a roadside stop on the Karakoram Highway. Walk the boulders slowly: many inscriptions are faint, and the joy is in finding a name scratched by a traveller sixteen hundred years ago.
Planning tip
Best Time to Visit, April–May or September–October, when the Indus valley between Chilas and Dasu is neither scorching nor frozen. Morning and late-afternoon light picks out the carvings on the dark rock.
Getting there, Beside the Indus and the Karakoram Highway at Shatial, about 60 km west of Chilas, Gilgit-Baltistan.
What to Do
Nearby
Straight-line distance from Shatial Rock Carvings, within 5 km.
Nothing else genuinely close by (within 5 km of Shatial Rock Carvings) is published yet.
