Rock art in Hubei may describe Emperor Yan Di

In 2018, Zhang and other rock art experts came to Suizhou to discover more about the rocks and their holes. They compiled a report that included detailed descriptions and images of 59 rocks and 100 pieces of rock art, each of which was given a digital profile.

The rocks also caught attention from abroad.

Determining the historical period in which the inscriptions were created has posed a challenge using conventional archaeological research or micro-corrosion dating.

In the summer of 2017, Robert Bednarik, president of the Australia-based International Federation of Rock Art Organizations, came to Suizhou to see the objects in person.

Based on micro-corrosion analysis, he found that the earliest could be 4,500 years old.

Wang Wenhu, a scholar from Suizhou, thinks the Sun God is the Emperor Yan Di, a legendary ancestor of the Chinese nation. People in Suizhou traditionally worship the Yan Emperor.

In March, a proposal was at the two sessions political meetings by Zhou Hongyu, a professor at Huazhong Normal University and a deputy to the National People's Congress, to apply for designation of the rock art as a world cultural landscape heritage, as he said it could provide clues to the origin of Chinese civilization.

Currently, the Shennong tourist zone is being developed under the standard of a 4-A tourist site. The zone now has a prehistory life experiment park and a cultural park that combines education and leisure.