In the high mountain range of northern Pakistan, where the Hindu Kush, the western Himalayas and Karakorum meet, there is a unique collection of rock paintings on the Upper Indus, one of the largest in the world. They are concentrated in the Indus Gorge in an extension of about 100 km between Indus-Kohistan up to the Raikot Bridge around the central town of Chilas, but can also be found along the course of the river up to Baltistan and Ladakh. More than 40,000 petroglyphs and more than 5,000 inscriptions represent a period from the Epipaleolithic or Neolithic in the 6th/5th millennium BC to the Islamisation of the mountain region in the 14th century. In their diversity, the rock paintings reflect the influences of different ethnic groups with their cultural and religious ideas. They represent a unique collection of sources on the changeable history of this region connecting Central Asia and the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent. A large part of the engravings originate from the time of Buddhism, which after its introduction as a new denomination in the 1st century reached its Golden Age between the 5th and 8th centuries. The historical background of this epoch is revealed by rock inscriptions, which in the older phase were written in Kharosthi and since the 5th century in Brahmi, but which are also joined by Sogdian, Bactrian, Parthian and Chinese inscriptions.
The aim of the project is to establish the most complete edition and analysis of the individual locations of the petroglyphs in catalogue volumes. A second series of publications is dedicated to selected topics in history, cultural history, epigraphy, ethnology and zoology. The project is an example of international cooperation with scholars from England, France, Pakistan and the United States.