Aug 4, 2009, 12:07 GMT
Lascaux, France - Seen in the glow of a flashlight, the bulls seem to move forward in procession. Horses romp alongside stags with branched antlers. Though it is cool and damp, the paintings on the ceiling shine in warm, earthy colours.
The visitors gaze almost reverently at the artwork, which has earned the Lascaux Grotto, in south-western France, the title of 'the prehistoric Sistine Chapel.'
'It's really so old?' whispers a small boy standing hand in hand with his mother.
Actually, these particular rock paintings, made with black pigment of manganese oxide and reddish pigment of iron oxide, are not so old. Visitors to 'Lascaux II,' near Montignac, see an exact replica of two of the chambers in the cave system at Lascaux, whose paintings and engravings are estimated to be 17,000 years old.
The half-buried, steel-and-cement replica corresponds both in shape and decoration to the original, which is located 200 metres away and has been closed to the public for more than 40 years.
'Be careful! The path slopes. But it's covered with non-slip, prehistoric linoleum,' quips tour guide Philippe Camba. The cave system was discovered in 1940 by four teenage boys, whose dog had fallen into a hole. As they tried to pull it out, they noticed that the hole was a cave entrance. Descending further with torches, they spied the large paintings of animals on the ceiling.
Shortly after the end of World War II, the cave system was equipped with electric lighting and opened to the public.
'It didn't take long for the first problems to arise,' Camba says. Visitors carried in all kinds of organisms on the soles of their shoes, and one day greenish algae formed on the walls. No sooner had the 'green disease' been remedied with chemicals than a whitish film spread across the rock paintings. An attempt to scrape it off threatened to detach them.
France's Ministry of Cultural Affairs, then headed by novelist Andre Malraux, had the cave system closed in 1963. To prevent further damage, a computerized air-conditioning system was set up to restore the original climatic conditions. Nevertheless, mould stains appeared on the walls two years ago.
'Everyone naturally wonders what these paintings mean. We haven't found a convincing answer yet, however,' Camba remarks. The artists belonged to the Cro-Magnon people of the Upper Palaeolithic Age. When archaeologists are at a loss for an explanation, they often assume religious or ritual motivations. This is the case at Lascaux, too.
Among the striking things about the animal depictions on the cave walls is that the artists used the shape of the rock for three-dimensional effects. In one place, a bull's back runs along a rock ledge. In another, a horse's belly coincides with a bulge in the stone. 'You've got to think of that first,' Camba says admiringly.
The artists worked in the light of stone lamps filled with animal fat. They mixed their colours from earth containing various minerals, and applied them directly with their fingers or with mats of moss. There are even signs of an early form of airbrushing at Lascaux, whereby the artist simply blew colour on the wall from his mouth.
Internet: http://de.franceguide.com, www.dordogne-perigord-tourisme.fr, www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en.
Your Talkback on this Story