Cave of Lascaux

The cave of Lascaux is one of most important the decorated caves paleolithic S by the number and the esthetic quality of its works. It is sometimes called “the Chapelle Sixtine of the parietal Art”. The Painting S and the Gravure S which it contains could not be the subject of precise direct datings: their age is estimated between approximately 18.000 and 15.000 years before the present starting from datings and of studies carried out on the objects discovered in the cave. They were associated a long time with the old Magdalénien, but the last studies show that they could date from the Solutréen which precedes it.

Geography and geological context

The cave is located in the black Périgord, on the commune of Montignac (the Dordogne), to forty kilometers in the south-east of Périgueux.

It opens on left bank of the Vézère, in a hill Calcaire within the stage Coniacien (higher Crétacé). Contrary to many others Cave S of the area, the cave of Lascaux is relatively “dry”. Indeed, a layer of impermeable marl isolates it from any infiltration of Eau, preventing all new formation of calcite concretion.

History ^,

Discovered

The cave is discovered the September 12th 1940, by four teenagers with the research of the dog of the one of between-them disappeared in a narrow hole revealed by the fall from a struck down pine: Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel and Simon Coencas quickly inform their former teacher, Leon Laval. The Prehistorian Henri Breuil, taken refuge in the area to flee the occupant, is the first specialist to visit Lascaux, on September 21st, 1940, in company of Jean Bouyssonnie, Andre Cheynier, followed soon Denis Peyrony and of Henri Begouën. H. Breuil is also the first to authenticate it, describe it and study it. He undertakes the first statements as of the end of the year 1940 and spends several months on the spot to study works which he allots to the Périgordien (see Datation).

After several last years in Spain, to Portugal and in South Africa, it returns in 1949 and undertakes Fouille S with Severin Blanc and Maurice Bourgon with the foot of the scene of the well where it hopes to find a burial. It puts at it at the day of the points of sagaies decorated out of wood with reindeer.

From 1952 to 1963, at the request of Breuil, new statements are carried out on 120 m ² copies by André Glory which enters 1.433 representations (today, 1.900 are indexed).

Thereafter, the parietal representations are also studied by Annette Laming-Emperaire, André Leroi-Gourhan and, of 1989 to 1999, by Norbert Aujoulat.

Classification

The cave is classified among the Historic buildings the year even of its discovery, on December 27th, 1940.

In October 1979, it is classified with the World heritage UNESCO, among various sites and Grottes decorated with the valley of Vézère.

Tourist exploitation and problems of conservation

In 1948, the access to the cave is arranged in order to allow tourist visits which will multiply quickly and put in danger the conservation of the parietal figurations. Important excavation work is launched and modifies the level and the nature of the grounds. An electric lighting is installed and a staircase is set up to reach the room of the Bulls easily. The entry is closed by a door carries of bronze.

Since 1955, the first indices of deterioration are noted. They are due to an excess of Carbon dioxide induced by the breathing of the visitors, which causes an acidification of the expired steam corroding the walls. In 1957 is set up a first system intended to regenerate the atmosphere and to stabilize the temperature and the hygroscopy. The visits however continue to follow one another the frantic rate of more than 1.000 tourists per days, releasing approximately 2.500 liters of carbon dioxide and 50 kg of steam in a cavity whose volume is relatively low, about 1.500 m ³. A. Glory, which takes readings during this period, must work during the night not to disturb the rate/rhythm of the visits.

In 1960, the “green disease” makes its appearance: the emanations of Carbon dioxide related to the visits, a too high temperature and the illuminations allow the dissemination of colonies of Algue S on the walls. The enrichment of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide generates the “white disease”, a calcite veil which settles on the walls and certain works. In 1963, the micro-organisms continue to proliferate in spite of the installation of filters to ozone. In April 1963, Andre Malraux, then Minister in charge for the cultural Affairs, decides to prohibit the access of Lascaux to the general public.

From 1965 to 1967, the whole of the system of thermal and hygrometrical regulation is modified in order to recreate the circulation terms of the masses of air which had allowed the conservation of Lascaux lasting of the millenia. The principle of this static system of cooling consists in using the natural convection to condense the steam at a given place.

At the beginning of the year 1970, the realization of a facsimile of part of the cave is implemented. It is opened with the public in 1983 ( cf will infra Lascaux II).

In 2000, the material of management of the climate of the cavity is replaced. To spring 2001, Bruno Desplat and Sandrine van Solinge, the agents in charge of the monitoring of the site, announce the appearance of Moisissure S in the hopper of entry of the cave. The ground covers indeed extremely resistant Champignon, Fusarium solani . This phenomenon coincides with the installation of the new system of hygrothermic regulation which was badly conceived. The stocks of Fusarium solani present in the cave are resistant to the Formaldéhyde employed since decades for the disinfection of the feet of the visitors. The mushroom was propagated with the paintings, covered soon with a white sleeping bag of Mycélium. The mushroom saw in Symbiose with a Bactérie named Pseudomonas fluorescens , which degrades the fungicide employed until there. This one from now on is thus combined with an antibiotic.

In 2002, the Ministère of the Culture sets up a international Scientific committee of the cave of Lascaux , which must manage the problem. In 2006, the contamination is about controlled, but every two weeks a covered team of special combinations is charged to disencumber with the hand the walls with the filaments of mycelium which reappear despite everything ^,^,.

Fifteen years of intense tourist frequentation thus disturbed the fragile balance which had allowed the miraculous conservation of Lascaux and failed to involve its disappearance.

Description of the cave

The cave of Lascaux is relatively small: the whole of the galleries does not exceed 250 Mr. length for uneven from approximately 30 Mr. the decorated part corresponds to a higher network, the lower network being not easily penetrable because of presence of Carbon dioxide.

The current entry corresponds to the prehistoric entry, even if it were arranged and equipped with a system of hopper. The entry of origin was to be a little more distant, but its ceiling collapsed in the past until forming the slope by which the inventive S reached the cave.

To facilitate descriptions, the cave is traditionally subdivided in a certain number of zones corresponding to rooms or corridors. Their picturesque names are due partly to H. Breuil and often refer to the religious Architecture:

the first room is the room of the Bulls or Rotonde , long 17 meters for 6 meters broad and 7 top;
it is prolonged by the axial Diverticule , a narrower gallery of the same direction, about of the same length;
since the room of the Bulls, on the right of the axial Diverticulum, one reaches the Passage , a gallery of about fifteen meters;
in the prolongation of the Passage opens the Nef , a higher corridor of a score of meters;
the Nave itself continues with a not decorated part, the walls not lending itself to it, then by the Diverticule of Cat-like the (or cabinet of Cat-like), a narrow corridor of a score of meters;
the Abside is a round room opening towards the west with the junction between the Passage and the Nave;
the Puits opens underground of the Apse. Its access supposes a descent from 4 to 5 meters until the beginning of the lower network.

Archaeological discoveries

The majority of the discovered archaeological vestiges with Lascaux were collected by A. Glory, during installation of the hoppers of entry and the rooms, or at the time of more methodical excavations in particular in the Well. These vestiges include/understand lithic industry (403 parts), osseous industry (28 parts), ornament (10 shells), fauna (113 remainders), many coals, vegetable macrorestes and many fragments of dyes.

In the Nave, the Cow is on an entablature where lamps were found, dyes as well as food remainders. In the Apse, a big number of objects was abandoned (points of sagaies, Grattoir S, gravers and lamps). Many vestiges were also discovered in the Well: points of sagaies, remainders of dyes, shells bored and lamps, whose specimen in entirely worked sandstone pink and whose handle is decorated of a barbed sign.

The study under the electron microscope of the dyes discovered at the time of the excavations or taken directly on certain works showed their very great diversity. The blacks correspond to various manganese oxides, taken directly in the area, and the yellows, orange and reds with iron oxides. All were employed pure, without addition of mineral load and thermal modification.

Parietal figurations

the room of the Bulls , presents the most spectacular composition of Lascaux. Its walls in Calcite lending itself badly to engraving, it is only decorated paintings, often of impressive size: some measure up to five meters length.

Two files of Aurochs face, two on a side and three of the other. Both aurochs on the northern side are accompanied by ten horses and by a large enigmatic animal, carrying two rectilinear features on the face which were worth to him the nickname of “Licorne”. Southern part, three large aurochs côtoient some three smaller, painted in red, like six small stag S and only the Ours of the cave, superimposed with the belly of an aurochs and not easily readable.

the axial Diverticule also is decorated bovinés and horses accompanied by stags and Bouquetin S. a drawing representing a reducing horse was brushed with the pencil of manganese to 2,50 meters of the ground. Certain animals are painted on the ceiling and seem to be rolled up from one wall to another. With these representations, which required the use of scaffolding, intermingle with many signs (rectangular sticks, points and signs).

the Passage presents a decoration strongly in the past degraded, in particular by circulations of air.

the Nef comprises four groups of figures: the panel of the Print, that of the black Cow, that of the Stags swimming, like that of the cross Bisons. These works are accompanied by many enigmatic geometrical signs, in particular of the coloured checkerworks that H. Breuil qualified “blazons”.

the Diverticule of Cat-like the owes its name with a group of cat-like, of which one seems to urinate to mark its territory. Very difficult of access, one can see there engravings of deer of a rather naive invoice. One also finds there other animals associated with signs, of which a representation of horse seen of face, exceptional in paleolithic art where the animals are generally represented profiles or according to a “twisted prospect”.

the Abside comprises more than thousand engravings of which some superimposed on paintings, corresponding to animals and signs. One finds there only the Renne represented in Lascaux.

the Puits presents the most enigmatic scene of Lascaux: a man with head of bird and the set up sex seems to fall, perhaps reversed by a bison broken by a sagaie; at its east coasts represented a surmounted lengthened object of a bird, perhaps a Propellent ; on the left an rhinoceros moves away. A horse is also present on the opposite wall. Two groups of signs are to be noted in this composition:

between the man and the rhinoceroses, three pairs of digitées punctuations that one finds at the bottom of the Diverticulum of cat-like, is in the most moved back part of the cave;
under the man and the bison, a barbed sign complexes that one practically finds with identical on other walls of the cave but also on points of sagaies and on the lamp in sandstones found in the vicinity.

It is well here of a scene from which the various elements are in relation the ones with the others, and not about a juxtaposition of animals or signs on the same wall, as it is generally the case in paleolithic art. For A. Leroi-Gourhan, this scene probably returns to a mythological episode whose significance is difficult to establish.

. This interpretation was published in no review at reading panel and is accommodated with skepticism by the scientific community.

Dating

Lascaux is one of the very first paleolithic sites to have profited from absolute datings by the method of the carbon-14, carried out by W.F. Libby itself. This method was implemented on charcoals coming from lamps discovered in the Well. The first result obtained (approximately 15.500 years BP) placed the frequentation of Lascaux in the Magdalénien and was questioned per H. Breuil which regarded parietal works as périgordiennes.

An age magdalénien was confirmed by three other later datings, carried out on coals coming from the excavations of A. Glory in the Passage and the Well. These datings cover one period going of old Magdalénien in average Magdalénien (of approximately 17.000 years BP at 15.000 years BP).

However, a date of approximately - 18.600 years, obtained in 1998 by the method of the carbon-14 in SMA on a fragment of rod out of wooden of reindeer coming from the Well, shows that the cave was attended as of the Solutréen. Solutréens did they simply pass punctually in the cave or carried out a part, even the majority or the totality of works?

The direct dating by the carbon-14 of paintings or parietal drawings was possible in certain decorated caves, in condition however that these works were carried out with Charcoal. It is not the case with Lascaux, where the black color was obtained by using oxides of Manganèse. Pigments fallen to the foot from the walls were put at the day in the archaeological levels: they made it possible to confirm the contemporaneity of works with certain vestiges (plates of flint, points of sagaie, needles in Os, lamps with Suif) but those are not more characteristic of Magdalénien than of Solutréen.

To date, no direct dating of the art of Lascaux is thus available. According to NR. Aujoulat, there exist arguments stylistics and sets of themes which make it possible to rather bring closer Lascaux to works dated well from Solutréen than from Magdalénien:

presence of geometrical signs;
representation of the aurochs with the front horn in simple curve and the sinuous back horn;
human faced with large bovidé (the layer solutréen of Rock-of-Be useful delivered the image of a man facing a Musk ox).

Lascaux II

Following the closing of the cave to the general public and because of the multiplication of the problems of conservation, a stereophony-photogrammetric statement of the totality of the decorated zones was carried out at the end of the years 1960 by the national geographical Institut.

The company owner of Lascaux launched out in the realization of a counterpart of a part representative of the cave (axial Diverticulum and Room of the Bulls). The project was partly financed by the sale of the original in the State in 1972. It was suspended in 1980 then begun again by the department of the Dordogne.

A double concrete hull of which the interior reproduces the original cave accurately was carried out starting from the statements of the IGN. Parietal works were then reproduced by a team led by Mr. Peytral.

Located at 200 m of the original, the Facsimiled, named Lascaux II , its doors on July 18th 1983 opened. Some other reproductions of paintings (plank of the stags, leant bisons and black cow of the Nave, scene of the Well) are exposed in the park of Thot, a few kilometres from Montignac.

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