DAR ES SALAAM, Oct. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Tanzania is waiting for a formal declaration to put its Kondoa Irangi rock paintings etched during the last Stone Age on the World Heritage list, while an official hinted the declaration is like to be made early next year.

    Local newspaper Daily News on Wednesday quoted Chadiel Msuya, asenior antiquities official from the education and culture ministry, as saying that the whole process to bid for the status has come to the end and the only thing to do is to wait for the formal declaration by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

    The official said that the UNESCO team had visited the Kondoa Irangi rock paintings site located in the Dodoma Region of centralTanzania for assessments and recommendations, and he hinted that the declaration of the site as a new member in the world heritage family is likely to be made early next year.

    Since 1979 when Tanzania succeeded in elevating the Ngorongoro Crater, a cradle of the mankind, as its first World Heritage site,the country has boosted five other World Heritage sites including the Kilwa Kisiwani (manmade), the Serengeti National Park (natural), the Selous Game Reserve (natural), Mount Kilimanjaro (natural), and the Stone Town in Zanzibar (manmade).

    Tanzania in 2001 put forward the application for the Kondoa Irangi rock paintings that are believed to be etched during the Stone Age around 50,000 BC.

    The Kondoa Irangi rock paintings, mainly in red and drawn with ochre pigments, show a typical Stone Age life with simplified human figures engaged in hunting and playing musical instruments as well as figures of animals such as elephants, giraffes and antelopes.

    However, these cultural treasures that have come through 50,000years are now facing a severe deterioration and some of them have been completely destroyed. Enditem