Chauvet Grotto 2 Ardèche

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reproduced cave paintings in the Caverne du Pont d'Arc

The Grotto Chauvet 2 Ardèche ( Caverne du Pont-d'Arc until February 3, 2019) recreates part of the neighboring Chauvet Cave ( Grotte Chauvet ) in the municipality of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc , in order to present the cave paintings there to a wide audience To be able to show in the most authentic environment possible without endangering the originals. This replica cave is the largest in the world.

Planning and construction

The Chauvet Cave was discovered in 1994. It contains numerous cave paintings that are among the oldest known.

In the years around the turn of the millennium, two projects failed one after the other on how a replica could be implemented due to financial and legal reasons. It was only in a third attempt from 2007 that Pascal Terrasse , the President of the Conseil général de l'Ardèche and himself a passionate speleologist , was able to organize mixed funding from funds from the region , the French state and the European Union . The cost of the project was € 55 million .

Replica of Stone Age people in the exhibition

A bush-covered site near the original site was chosen as the building site for the replica , which was connected to the road from Vallon-Pont-d'Arc to Bourg-Saint-Andéol with a short cul-de-sac . The concept includes the replica itself as well as accompanying facilities in a park-like, but nature-oriented area. The replica was realized in an architecturally elaborate hall - at ground level. The complex includes further buildings in which the findings and their Paleolithic context are explained to the visitors , as well as a restaurant and a museum shop. Construction began in October 2012. The project was designed by the architects Xavier Fabre .

The French name of the cave replica was initially not allowed to contain any reference to the name of the original find site, as the discoverers of the Chauvet cave had secured the rights to the corresponding brand names and in this regard between them and the consortium that implemented the cave replica of Pont-d'Arc, After an agreement was reached at the beginning of 2018, the name was changed on February 4, 2019 from Caverne du Pont-d'Arc to "Grotte Chauvet 2 Ardèche".

The replica

The quality of the replica was ensured by a scientific committee composed of 15 scientists chaired by Jean Clottes . Three scientists who had studied the original cave since 1998 were named to accompany the process of making the replica: Jean-Michel Geneste ( paleontologist ), Jean-Jacques Delannoy ( geomorphologist ) and Philippe Fosse ( archaeozoologist ). The artificial cave room contains the replicas of the most important paintings from the original cave, whereby the shape and surface texture of the underground of the paintings corresponds to that of the original cave walls.

On an area of ​​3500 m² the replica forms a cave room with 8180 m² walls and vaults on a scale of 1: 1. Technically, this is achieved by the fact that the "rocks", reshaped in synthetic resin , colored and painted true to the original, are mounted on a steel mesh made of 150 km of steel wire, which exactly reproduces the surface shape of the cave. This steel mesh is in turn attached to a supporting structure in the roof of the hall. The visitors to the replica do not see any of this.

The replicas of the cave paintings were applied to the prefabricated replicas of the “rock” walls by various artists. They used the same techniques and materials that were used to create the originals: natural color pigments and charcoal .

Opening and operation

The facility was opened on April 10, 2015 in the presence of the French President François Hollande and has been open to the public since April 25, 2015. 300,000 to 400,000 visitors are expected annually.

In the structurally weak region of Ardèche , the facility created 60 to 70 jobs in high season and, indirectly, 300 to 500 additional jobs in the tourist service sector .

While visitors can freely enter all other facilities of the facility, visiting the replica is only possible as part of guided groups. For this purpose, minute-by-minute, time-bound tickets are sold. Groups of around 25 people are admitted at intervals and complete the tour in French, English or German in around 50 minutes. Audio guides in 10 languages ​​are available for visitors who speak other languages.

Web links

Commons : Grotte Chauvet 2 Ardèche  - Collection of images

Remarks

  1. ↑ The lack of panorama freedom in France unfortunately does not allow the article to be adequately illustrated. The French Wikipedia article and commons seem to see it differently.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nathalie Van Praagh: La grotte Chauvet au millimètre près . In: La Montagne, April 10, 2015
  2. ↑ Michèle Warnet: Grotte Chauvet: 5 clés pour un succès annoncé . Les Echos, April 24, 2015.
  3. ^ NN: La Caverne du Pont d'Arc ouvre ses portes au public .
  4. ↑ NN: La grotte Chauvet restituée: le projet du siècle en Ardèche ( Memento of the original dated November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / suite101.fr
  5. ↑ Grotto NN: Chauvet: pourquoi cet imbroglio? , July 25, 2013; NN: Ardèche: histoire de gros sous autour de la grotte Chauvet . Le Parisien , November 25, 2013.
  6. ↑ Pierre-Jean Pluvy: La caverne du pont d'Arc devient la "Grotte Chauvet 2 Ardèche". February 4, 2019, accessed August 30, 2020 .
  7. ^ NN: Comment et qui réalise la Caverne du Pont d'Arc? .
  8. ^ NN: La creation de la plus grande réplique du monde en images .
  9. ↑ Restitution en cours de la grotte: la salle des Bauges .
  10. ^ Center de Recherche et d'Etudes pour l'Art Préhistorique (CREAP): La caverne du Pont d'Arc: une grotte unique, un projet d'exception ; Sophie Leroy: La grotte Chauvet comme si vous y étiez . In: La Voix du Nord, April 24, 2015.
  11. ^ Hervé Chassain: La grotte Chauvet made in Montignac . In: Sud Ouest (edition for the Dordogne ), September 9, 2014, p. 11; Hervé Chassain: Chauvet grotto, le savoir-faire du Périgord en pleine lumière . In: Le Mag 129, supplement for Sud Ouest , September 20, 2014, pp. 10-17; NN: Gilles Tosello, un peintre de la nuit des temps . In: La Depeche , January 6, 2015.
  12. ^ Sylvestre Huet: Hollande inaugure la Caverne du Pont d'Arc . In: Liberation , April 10, 2015; NN: La Caverne du Pont d'Arc a reçu ses premiers visiteurs . In Midi Libre , April 27, 2015.
  13. ^ NN: La Caverne du Pont d'Arc ouvre ses portes au public ; Ursula Welter : Overwhelming original and impressive forgery . In: Deutschlandradiokultur.de , April 10, 2015; Bettina Kaps: The birthplace of art in the Ardèche . In: Deutschlandradiokultur.de , April 16, 2015.
  14. ↑ NN: La Caverne du Pont d'Arc, réplique de la grotte originale ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Robert Pratta: L'inauguration de "La Caverne du Pont d'Arc" . Paris Match , April 9, 2015.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / archeologie.culture.fr
  15. ↑ Carole Chatelain: Ouverture de la réplique de la grotte Chauvet: conseils de visite ( Memento of the original of July 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Science se t'avenir , April 30, 2015; own visit User: Reinhard Dietrich . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sciencesetavenir.fr
  16. ↑ Own visit, summer 2017.

Coordinates: 44 ° 24 ′ 25 ″  N , 4 ° 25 ′ 40 ″  E