The Painted Rock Shelter of Isko (Lat.23°48'24.67''N; Long.85°19'41.09''E;) is located in the vicinity of the village of the same name, in Napo Panchayat, lies at a distance of about 32 km west from the district town of Hazaribagh and 15 km from the block headquarters of Barkagaon and 90 kms from Ranchi the capital city of the state of Jharkhand.

The site was originally discovered by a Jesuit Priest Fr. Tony Herbert in 1990s and was subsequently studied and popularized by local scholars. This site is very unusual as it stands out prominently for its painting of enigmatic abstract and geometrical designs, making it a very rare site and a treat to watch. This site has paintings of animals as bison, buffalo, deer; amphibians as, frog and reptiles as, turtles etc. The color used for the painting is ochre, white and black.

The rock shelter is about 20 ft. in height. It is divided into four distinct sections that are interconnected. The painted area of the shelter is 30.5 mts in length (horizontal) and 2.25 mts in width (vertical). The shelter is located at such a spot that it divides the village from the jungle area. There is a small stream called Dudhi Nala which flows towards the east in the close proximity of the rock shelter. The nearby ethnic population of the area resides in mud houses. The natural sand stone rock- shelter is locally known by them as Kohbar due to similarity of its paintings with those which are made at walls of inner and outer ends of nuptial room (bridal room) where newly married couple meets and the very room is known as Kohbar.

These paintings have relatively been dated to the Meso-Chalcolithic period, as the presence of copper and lithic tools technology while some scholars believe that the site belongs to middle Paleolithic. A number of stone tools i.e. handaxe, Chopper-chopping, microliths, Blades, points, scrapper, etc. have been reported earlier from this site.

It is felt that intricate geometrical designs are most mysterious and is hard to explain the meaning of these icons. This rock painting tradition has been taken up by the local ethnic inhabitants of this area, and paint their houses traditionally. The motifs seen in Isko are rhinoceros that has been extinct for 200 years in this area, human figures, bull and wild cattle, cryptic writings and pictograms that are undeciphered, sun, concentric circles, and other patterns and designs.

The method and style of painting adopted by the ancient people was to draw the outline first and after that filling of the pigments within the outline. The strokes of these paintings vary from thinner to thicker and sometimes they are followed by outer lines of different colors. These paintings throw the light on the culture of that period along with the surrounding ecology and life style of the human being.