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Lascaux ( , ; , "Lascaux Cave") is a network of caves near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne in southwestern France. Over 600 Parietal art cave painting cover the interior walls and ceilings of the cave. The paintings represent primarily large animals, typical local contemporary fauna that correspond with the fossil record of the Upper Paleolithic in the area. They are the combined effort of many generations. With continued debate, the age of the paintings is now usually estimated at around 17,000 to 22,000 years (early Magdalenian). Because of the outstanding prehistoric art in the cave, Lascaux was inducted into the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979, as an element of the Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley.
The original caves have been closed to the public since 1963, as their condition was quickly deteriorating, but there are now a number of replicas.
The cave complex was opened to the public on 14 July 1948, and initial archaeological investigations began a year later, focusing on the Shaft. By 1955, carbon dioxide, heat, humidity, and other contaminants produced by 1,200 visitors per day had visibly damaged the paintings. As air condition deteriorated, fungi and lichen increasingly infested the walls. Consequently, the cave was closed to the public in 1963, the paintings were restored to their original state, and a monitoring system on a daily basis was introduced.
The paintings for this site were duplicated with the same type of materials (such as iron oxide, charcoal, and ochre) which were believed to be used 19,000 years ago. Other of Lascaux have also been produced over the years.
The Lascaux valley is located some distance from the major concentrations of decorated caves and inhabited sites, most of which were discovered further downstream. In the environs of the village of Eyzies-de-Tayac Sireuil, there are no fewer than 37 decorated caves and shelters, as well as an even greater number of habitation sites from the Upper Paleolithic, located in the open, beneath a sheltering overhang, or at the entrance to one of the area's karst cavities. This is the highest concentration in Europe.
Over 900 can be identified as animals, and 605 of these have been precisely identified. Out of these images, there are 364 paintings of equines as well as 90 paintings of Deer. Also represented are cattle and bison, each representing 4 to 5% of the images. A smattering of other images includes seven felines, a bird, a bear, a rhinoceros. In the deepest reaches of the cave, at the bottom of a 9m-deep well, the only human figure of the cave was depicted, in a strikingly different style. There are no images of reindeer, even though that was the principal source of food for the artists, and no image of fish either. Geometric images have also been found on the walls.
The most famous section of the cave is The Hall of the Bulls where bulls, equines, aurochs, stags, and the only bear in the cave are depicted. The four black bulls, or aurochs, are the dominant figures among the 36 animals represented here. One of the bulls is long, the largest animal discovered so far in cave art. Additionally, the bulls appear to be in motion.
A painting referred to as "The Crossed Bison", found in the chamber called the Nave, is often submitted as an example of the skill of the Paleolithic cave painters. The crossed hind legs create the illusion that one leg is closer to the viewer than the other. This visual depth in the scene, enhanced by the three dimensional structure of the painted rock, demonstrates a highly sophisticated form of perspective which disappeared with the Magdalenian culture and would not re-emerge until the Italian Renaissance. Vulture As famously quoted by Picasso upon encountering paleolithic art: "we have learned nothing in twelve thousand years".
Two rows of aurochs face each other, two on one side and three on the other. The two aurochs on the north side are accompanied by about ten and a large enigmatic animal, with two straight lines on its forehead that earned it the nickname "unicorn". On the south side, three large aurochs are next to three smaller ones, painted red, as well as six small deer and the only bear in the cave, superimposed on the belly of an aurochs and difficult to read.
The Axial Diverticulum is also decorated with cattle and horses accompanied by deer and ibex. A drawing of a fleeing horse was brushed with manganese pencil above the ground. Some animals are painted on the ceiling and seem to roll from one wall to the other. These representations, which required the use of scaffolding, are intertwined with many signs (sticks, dots, and rectangular signs).
The Passage has a highly degraded decoration, notably through air circulation.
The Nave has four groups of figures: the Empreinte panel, the Black Cow panel, the Deer swimming panel, and the Crossed Buffalo panel. These works are accompanied by many enigmatic geometric signs, including coloured checkers that H. Breuil called "coats of arms".
The Feline Diverticulum owes its name to a group of felines, one of which seems to urinate to mark its territory. Very difficult to access, one can see there engravings of wild animals of a rather naive style. There are also other animals associated with signs, including a representation of a horse seen from the front, exceptional in Paleolithic art where animals are generally represented in profiles or from a "twisted perspective".
The Apse contains more than a thousand engravings, some of which are superimposed on paintings, corresponding to animals and signs. There is the only reindeer represented in Lascaux.
The Well presents the most enigmatic scene of Lascaux: an ithyphallic man with a bird's head seems to lie on the ground, perhaps knocked down by a buffalo gutted by a spear; at his side is represented an elongated object surmounted by a bird, on the left a rhinoceros moves away. Various interpretations of what is represented have been offered.Eshleman, Clayton, Juniper Fuse: Upper Paleolithic Imagination & the Construction of the Underworld, pp. 35–36, 2003, Wesleyan University Press, , google books A horse is also present on the opposite wall. Two groups of signs are to be noted in this composition:
Applying the iconographic method of analysis to the Lascaux paintings (studying position, direction and size of the figures; organization of the composition; painting technique; distribution of the color planes; research of the image center), Thérèse Guiot-Houdart attempted to comprehend the symbolic function of the animals, to identify the theme of each image and finally to reconstitute the canvas of the myth illustrated on the rock walls.
Julien d'Huy and Jean-Loïc Le Quellec showed that certain angular or barbed signs of Lascaux may be analysed as "weapon" or "wounds". These signs affect dangerous animalsbig cats, aurochs, and bisonmore than others and may be explained by a fear of the animation of the image.Julien d'Huy et Jean-Loïc Le Quellec (2010). "Les animaux 'fléchés' à Lascaux: nouvelle proposition d’interprétation" Préhistoire du Sud-Ouest 18(2): 161–170 Another finding supports the hypothesis of half-alive images. At Lascaux, bison, aurochs, and ibex are not represented side by side. Conversely, one can note a bison-horses-lions system and an aurochs-horses-deer-bears system, these animals being frequently associated.Denis Tauxe (2007)."L’organisation symbolique du dispositif pariétal de la grotte de Lascaux", Préhistoire du Sud-Ouest, 15: 177–266 Such a distribution may show the relationship between the species pictured and their environmental conditions. Aurochs and bison fight one against the other, and horses and deer are very social with other animals. Bison and lions live in open plains areas; aurochs, deer and bears are associated with forests and marshes; ibex habitat is rocky areas, and horses are highly adaptive for all these areas. The Lascaux paintings' disposition may be explained by a belief in the real life of the pictured species, wherein the artists tried to respect their real environmental conditions.Julien d'Huy (2011). " La distribution des animaux à Lascaux reflèterait leur distribution naturelle ", Bulletin de la Société Historique et Archéologique du Périgord CXXXVIII, 493–502
Less known is the image area called the Abside (Apse), a roundish, semi-spherical chamber similar to an apse in a Romanesque basilica. It is approximately and covered on every wall surface (including the ceiling) with thousands of entangled, overlapping, engraved drawings.Leroi-Gourhan, André. The Art of Prehistoric Man in Western Europe. London: Thames and Hudson. 1968. p. 315 The ceiling of the Apse, which ranges from as measured from the original floor height, is so completely decorated with such engravings that it indicates that the prehistoric people who executed them first constructed a scaffold to do so.Mario Ruspoli, The Cave of Lascaux: The Final Photographic Record (New York: Abrams, 1983) pp. 146–147
According to David Lewis-Williams and Jean Clottes who both studied presumably similar art of the San people of Southern Africa, this type of art is spiritual in nature relating to visions experienced during ritualistic trance. These trance visions are a function of the human imagination and so are independent of geographical location. Nigel Spivey, a professor of classical art and archeology at the University of Cambridge, has further postulated in his series, How Art Made the World, that dot and lattice patterns overlapping the representational images of animals are very similar to hallucinations provoked by sensory-deprivation. He further postulates that the connections between culturally important animals and these hallucinations led to the invention of image-making, or the art of drawing.
André Leroi-Gourhan studied the cave from the 1960s; his observation of the associations of animals and the distribution of species within the cave led him to develop a Structuralism theory that posited the existence of a genuine organization of the graphic space in Palaeolithic sanctuaries. This model is based on a masculine/feminine duality – which can be particularly observed in the bison/horse and aurochs/horse pairs – identifiable in both the signs and the animal representations. He also defined an ongoing evolution through four consecutive styles, from the Aurignacian to the Late Magdalenian. Leroi-Gourhan did not publish a detailed analysis of the cave's figures. In his work Préhistoire de l'art occidental, published in 1965, he nonetheless put forward an analysis of certain signs and applied his explanatory model to the understanding of other decorated caves.
As of 2008, the cave contained Stachybotrys. In January 2008, authorities closed the cave for three months, even to scientists and preservationists. A single individual was allowed to enter the cave for twenty minutes once a week to monitor climatic conditions. Now only a few scientific experts are allowed to work inside the cave and just for a few days a month, but the efforts to remove the mold have taken a toll, leaving dark patches and damaging the pigments on the walls. In 2009 the mold problem was pronounced stable. In 2011 the fungus seemed to be in retreat after the introduction of an additional, even stricter conservation program. Two research programs have been instigated at the CIAP concerning how to best treat the problem, and the cave also now possesses a climatisation system designed to reduce the introduction of bacteria.
Organized through the initiative of the French Ministry of Culture, an international symposium titled "Lascaux and Preservation Issues in Subterranean Environments" was held in Paris on 26 and 27 February 2009, under the chairmanship of Jean Clottes. It brought together nearly three hundred participants from seventeen countries with the goal of confronting research and interventions conducted in Lascaux Cave since 2001 with the experiences gained in other countries in the domain of preservation in subterranean environments.At the Takamatsuzuka Tomb in Japan, and Altamira in Spain, for example. The proceedings of this symposium were published in 2011. Seventy-four specialists in fields as varied as biology, biochemistry, botany, hydrology, climatology, geology, fluid mechanics, archaeology, anthropology, restoration and conservation, from numerous countries (France, United States, Portugal, Spain, Japan, and others) contributed to this publication.Coye, N. dir. (2011), Lascaux et la conservation en milieu souterrain: actes du symposium international (Paris, 26–27 fév. 2009) = Lascaux and Preservation Issues in Subterranean Environments: Proceedings of the International Symposium (Paris, 26 and 27 February), Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 360 p. In French and English.
In May 2018 Ochroconis lascauxensis, a species of fungus of the Ascomycota phylum, was officially described and named after the place of its first emergence and isolation, the Lascaux cave. This followed on from the discovery of another closely related species Ochroconis anomala, first observed inside the cave in 2000. The following year black spots began to appear among the cave paintings. No official announcement on the effect or progress of attempted treatments has ever been made.
The problem is ongoing, as are efforts to control the microbial and fungal growths in the cave. The fungal infection crises have led to the establishment of an International Scientific Committee for Lascaux and to rethinking how, and how much, human access should be permitted in caves containing prehistoric art.
Parietal representation
The Hall of the Bulls presents the most spectacular composition of Lascaux. Its calcite walls are not suitable for engraving, so it is only decorated with paintings, often of impressive dimensions: some are up to long.
Interpretation
The interpretation of Palaeolithic Art is problematic, as it can be influenced by our own prejudices and beliefs. Some anthropologists and art historians theorize the paintings could be an account of past hunting success, or could represent a mystical ritual in order to improve future hunting endeavors. The latter theory is supported by the overlapping images of one group of animals in the same cave location as another group of animals, suggesting that one area of the cave was more successful for predicting a plentiful hunting excursion.
Threats
The opening of Lascaux Cave after World War II changed the cave environment. The exhalations of 1,200 visitors per day, presence of light, and changes in air circulation have created a number of problems. Lichens and crystals began to appear on the walls in the late 1950s, leading to closure of the caves in 1963. This led to restriction of access to the real caves to a few visitors every week, and the creation of a replica cave for visitors to Lascaux. In 2001, the authorities in charge of Lascaux changed the air conditioning system which resulted in regulation of the temperature and humidity. When the system had been established, an infestation of Fusarium solani, a white mold, began spreading rapidly across the cave ceiling and walls. The mold is considered to have been present in the cave soil and exposed by the work of tradesmen, leading to the spread of the fungus which was treated with quicklime. In 2007, a new fungus, which has created grey and black blemishes, began spreading in the real cave.
See also
Further reading
External links
Categories: En Official Website, 1940 Archaeological Discoveries, Stone Age Sites In France, Caves Containing Pictograms In France, Caves Of Dordogne, Tourist Attractions In Dordogne, World Heritage Sites In France, Prehistoric Sites And Decorated Caves Of The Vézère Valley, Upper Paleolithic Sites In Europe
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