A team of archaeologists and mountaineers have said they have uncovered historical caves with large ancient murals depicting Buddhist teachings and religion in the district of Mustang.

The team, comprising of American, Italian and Nepali archaeologists, were led to the cave by a local shepherd. The shepherd had said he had taken shelter in these caves earlier. The expedition team discovered that the caves contain fascinating Buddhist murals. The explorers believe that these murals date back to the 13 th century.

The caves uncovered by the team at Choser area in Upper Mustang are still remained intact to this day due to its location where human access is virtually impossible.

The caves have decorative wall motifs rarely found in Asia, old form of Tibetan scripts executed in ink and silver and gold along with pre-Christian era pottery shred.

The locals recall a number of folklores associated with these caves but were never documented.

Explorers have said the ‘findings could just be a beginning’ as they found several holes in single caves with as many as 40-50 smaller chambers inside a single cave.

The archaeologists have suspected that the caves could have been used by the pilgrims crossing the Nepal-China border for meditation as the caves are located near Mansarovar lake, a popular pilgrimage site among Nepali and Indians Buddhists as well as Hindus.

The caves lie at 4,500 m above sea level and the area is most covered by snow making the only year round route to Tibet from Nepal very difficult to travel.

The Mustang region was opened to foreigners in 1992 and has a dry and harsh alpine terrain adjoining China’s Tibet, which is considered as the trans-Himalayan desert area.