Lascaux cave
| Vézère valley: sites and cave paintings | |
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UNESCO world heritage 
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| Lascaux cave painting |
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| National territory: |
 France
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| Type: | Culture |
| Criteria : | i, iii |
| Reference No .: | 85-011 |
| UNESCO region : | Europe and North America |
| History of enrollment | |
| Enrollment: | 1979 ( session 3 ) |
The Upper Palaeolithic Cave of Lascaux (also called Grotte von Lascaux ) in the French Dordogne department contains important cave paintings from the archaeological cultural level Magdalenian , which are assigned to the Franco-Cantabrian cave art .
Since 1979, the cave is, together with other sites and caves in the Vezere Valley to the World Heritage of UNESCO . The Lascaux cave was described by Abbé Breuil as the " Sistine Chapel of the Early Period ".
Geography and geology
Coordinates: 45 ° 3 ′ 14 " N , 1 ° 10 ′ 15" E
The cave is located on the left side of the Vézère valley , about two kilometers south of Montignac , to whose municipality it belongs. It can be reached via the D 704 and then via rue la Grande Bechade .
The slope on which the cave is located is made of limestone from the Coniacium . Compared to other caves of the Périgord Noir (Black Périgord) , the Lascaux cave is relatively dry, as it is sealed against water infiltration by a marl horizon and thus no significant calcite coating could develop.
classification
The Lascaux cave is of particular importance within the Franco-Cantabrian cave art . It is comparable in this respect to the Altamira Caves , the Rouffignac Caves , the Henry Cosquer Caves and the Chauvet Caves .
History of the cave since its discovery
The cave was discovered on September 12, 1940 by four young men, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel and Simon Coencas. Henri Breuil arrived on September 21 and published a first scientific description that same year. He dated the works of art in Périgordien .
In 1949, Breuil, Séverin Blanc and Maurice Bourgon excavated the cave and discovered ornate spearheads made from reindeer antlers . Between 1952 and 1963, André Glory took stock of the works of art and made 1433 copies (current status: 1900).
In 1948 the cave was opened to the general public. For this occasion, the cave floor was excavated and lowered, electrical lighting was installed, a staircase was installed and a heavy bronze door was placed at the entrance so as not to destabilize the cave climate (of a constant 14 ° C) too much. However, the air given off by around 1,200 visitors per day significantly damaged the images. Condensation and organic matter led to the formation of mold. That is why the cave was closed to the public in 1963 and provided with an elaborate ventilation and climate control system. The pictures have been restored and have been monitored daily since then.
This was followed by studies by Annette Laming-Emperaire , from 1975 by André Leroi-Gourhan and his multidisciplinary team and between 1989 and 1999 by Norbert Ajoulat .
In the cave, besides white fungal infestation ( Fusarium solani ), which occurs in symbiosis with the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens , black mold continues to threaten the famous wall paintings. After treatment with a fungus killer, the black mold no longer spreads, but it does not regress either, as the head of the scientific committee for the cave, Marc Gauthier, announced in February 2009.
Dating of the cave pictures
The cave paintings were originally attributed to the early Magdalenian period, around the period between 17,000 and 15,000 BC. Through the discovery of older artefacts from the Solutréen , doubts about this assignment have been raised. Authors such as Norbert Aujoulat consider the cave to be even older and are thus approaching the assumption made by Breuil that it was assigned to Périgordia (approx. 36,000 - 19,000 BC).
Spatial structure
Duct system of the cave
The Lascaux cave or grotto is relatively small; their entire corridor system with a maximum height difference of 30 meters is no longer than 250 meters. The cave consists of two levels, whereby the works of art are exclusively in the upper, carbon dioxide-free level.
The east-south-east facing entrance was converted into three lock chambers. Behind it you reach the 17 meter long, 6 meter wide and 7 meter high hall of the bulls ( French Salle des taureaux ). Further in the same direction, the cavity narrows axially to form a diverticule of roughly the same length (axial lateral duct) .
A side passage branches off to the right of the Bull Hall to the north, the 15-meter-long passage . Behind the passage follows the 20-meter-long, higher-lying Nef (ship) . The ship turns into an unpainted passage and finally ends in the Diverticule des Félins (side passage of the big cats) , a 20-meter-long narrow passage.
Another side passage opens to the east between the passage and the ship. It begins with the abside ( German apse ), a semicircular hall. Behind it is the Puits (shaft) , a 4 to 5 meter deep shaft opening that leads into the deeper network of the cave.
Location of the rock art
The rock paintings are distributed over the individual cave sections as follows.
- Hall of the Bulls (French Salle des taureaux )
The Bull Room is undoubtedly the most spectacular section of the Lascaux Cave. It contains only paintings, as the walls are covered with calcite and are not very suitable for carving. Some of the images can take on impressive dimensions, such as the famous "bull" - the symbol of the Dordogne - at 5.20 meters.
Large aurochs are depicted on both sides of the wall , two on the north side and three on the south side. The aurochs on the north side are accompanied by ten wild horses and a somewhat puzzling animal, the so-called Licorne (unicorn) . The three large aurochs on the south side are framed by three smaller aurochs painted in red, six smaller deer and the only bear in Lascaux . The bear, very difficult to see, covers the belly of an aurochs.
- Axial lateral duct (Diverticule axial)
The axial side corridor is also decorated with cattle and horses, which are accompanied here by deer and ibex . At a height of 2.50 meters there is a wild horse drawn with manganese oxide . Images of animals that could only be attached using scaffolding even stretch across the ceiling. Between the animals there are always different signs such as B. Bars, dots and rectangular patterns.
- passage
Today, the passage contains hardly identifiable decorations that probably fell victim to air circulation a long time ago.
- Ship (nef)
The ship consists of four groups of figures, including a black cow, swimming deer and bison . The figures are surrounded by enigmatic geometric signs and patterns (checkerboard pattern).
- Side passage of the big cats (Diverticule des Félins)
In the side passage of the big cats , a group of these predators was engraved into the rock face. One of them is obviously in the process of marking out its territory. The scratch drawings are done in a rather naive style. In addition to the big cats, there are also other animals and symbolic signs. A horse's head was depicted from the front - somewhat unusual for the art of the Upper Palaeolithic, in which the objects to be depicted were mostly depicted in profile or with a “quirky” perspective.
- Apse (abside)
The abside contains more than a thousand incised drawings, which occasionally overlay painted depictions of animals and symbols. Below is the only picture of a reindeer in Lascaux.
- Shaft or well (puits)
In the descent to the shaft there is one of the extremely rare depictions of a person in the Stone Age cave painting: a man with a bird's head seems to fall backwards, his penis is erect. To the right of the man is a bison with a spear on its body. Underneath, black concentric lines represent blood or the intestines. Next to the man is a pole with a bird at the end. On the left a (woolly) rhinoceros is moving away (outside the image section shown here).
Further symbols in this composition:
- Between the man and the rhinoceros there are three double point-like signs, which can also be seen in the side passage of the big cats, the most remote part of the cave.
- Below the man and the bison can be seen a dashed symbol with a one-sided tip and two barbs at the end. This symbol was also put on other walls; it is also found on spears that were found and on the oil lamp discovered near the shaft .
The individual elements of the composition of the fountain are clearly related to each other - in contrast to the usual representation. André Leroi-Gourhan sees in this scene an event of a mythological nature that is difficult to interpret.
Colors used
Electron microscopic examinations of paint residues confirm a very diverse range of colors. Black colors correspond to different manganese oxides from the surrounding area . Orange, yellow and red hues are due to different iron oxides . The colors were applied directly without being mixed or thermally changed.
Archaeological finds
Most of the archaeological finds were brought to light in the course of work on the entrance locks, excavations in various halls or systematic excavations at the well. These include 403 stone artifacts, 28 bone tools, jewelry (10 shell cloaks), 113 animal remains, numerous pieces of charcoal, larger plant remains and several fragments of used paint.
In the ship there were several lamps as well as leftover paint and food on a ledge below the picture of the cow . In the abside numerous objects such as B. spearheads, scrapers , drills and lamps left behind. Several artifacts also appeared in the fountain - for example spearheads, leftover paint, pierced shells and lamps, including a copy in red sandstone , the handle of which is decorated with the above-mentioned dashed symbol.
Replicas, museums, exhibitions
Lascaux 2
In 1983, Lascaux 2 was opened to the general public: an exact replica of the bull hall and axial side passage , just 200 meters from the originals. With 250,000 visitors annually (2011), it is the most visited attraction in the Dordogne.
Before 1983 this replica was on a traveling exhibition. So this was z. B. 1982 in the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim.
Images and reproductions of other works of art from Lascaux can be viewed in the Museum of Prehistoric Art Le Thot near Montignac .
Lascaux 3
There is also the touring exhibition Lascaux 3 with replicas of works of art from the ship and the fountain . The replicas will be shown in several countries around the world until at least 2020: After stops in Bordeaux (2012, 100,000 visitors), Chicago (2013, 325,000 visitors), Houston (2013/2014, 200,000 visitors), Montreal (2014), Geneva (2015 / 2016) and Gwangmyeong (2016) followed Tokyo (2016/2017), Fukuoka (2017) and Munich (2019).
Lascaux 4
The Center International d'Art Pariétal - Lascaux IV in Montignac presents copies of all the works of art from the cave to the public. The project - designed by the Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta - was developed under the government of Nicolas Sarkozy , put on hold in 2012 due to a financial crisis, but completed in 2016 and opened on December 15, 2016.
Trivia
Pablo Picasso is said to have said in 1940 after a tour of the cave with regard to modern painting: "We have not discovered anything."
gallery
literature
- Georges Bataille: Lascaux or the birth of art. With an essay by Rita Bischof, Brinkmann and Bose, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-940048-35-6 .
- Annette Laming: Lascaux. At the origin of art. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1959 ( Fundus Series 4)
- Gerhard Rietschel u. a .: Lascaux. Ice Age Cave. Verlag von Zabern, Mainz 1982, ISBN 3-8053-0593-1 . (Exhibition catalog of the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum )
- Georges Bataille : The prehistoric painting. Lascaux or The Birth of Art. Skira-Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-88447-069-8 .
- Gilles and Brigitte Delluc: Connaitre Lascaux. Editions Sud-Ouest, Bordeaux 1989, ISBN 2-905983-63-9 . (64 pages with pictures by Ray Delvert in French)
- Brigitte Delluc: The Lascaux Cave. Éditions Sud Ouest, Bordeaux 1991, ISBN 2-87901-028-4 .
- Toni Hildebrandt: image, gesture and hand. Leroi-Gourhan's paleontological image theory , IMAGE 14 (September 2011). "Image, gesture and hand. Leroi-Gourhan's paleontological image theory ( Memento from January 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- Mario Ruspoli, Odile Berthemy (ed.): The cave painting of Lascaux. In the footsteps of early man. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-8289-0664-8 . (former title "Lascaux. Ice Age Sanctuary")
- Maurice Blanchot , René Char and Rolf Winnewisser: The animal from Lascaux . Kleinheinrich Buch- und Kunstverlag, Münster 1999, ISBN 3-930754-08-8 .
Web links
Entry on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website ( English and French ).
- Collection of images and various texts about the Lascaux cave at Don's Maps
- Animated tour of the cave
- The international traveling exhibition (French and English)
- Caves in France: Grotte de Lascaux
- ZDF - Terra X: The Sistine Chapel of the Ice Age - TV series Terra X on ZDF (August 31, 2008)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Deutschlandfunk , Kultur heute , December 15, 2016
- ↑ deutschlandfunk.de , calendar sheet , September 12, 2015, Mathias Schulenburg: Fascinating world of images from the Stone Age (December 10, 2016)
- ↑ Mold in a primeval cave . In: Südkurier of February 27, 2009
- ↑ La grotte de Lascaux ponctuée de taches noire . In: Le Figaro of November 22, 2007
- ↑ Coye, N. dir. (2011), Lascaux et la conservation en milieu souterrain: actes du symposium international (Paris, February 26-27, 2009) = Lascaux and Preservation Issues in Subterranean Environments: Proceedings of the International Symposium (Paris, February 26 and 27) , Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'homme, 360 p. editions-msh.fr
- ↑ deutschlandfunk.de , Kultur heute , July 18, 2008, Björn Stüben: Das Drama von Lascaux (December 10, 2016)
- ^ Aujoulat, N .: Lascaux. Le Geste, l'Espace et le Temps . Seuil, 2004, ISBN 2-02-025726-2 .
- ↑ Illustration of the shaft scene e.g. E.g .: archeologie.culture.fr/lascaux/de/mediatheque/der-schacht
- ↑ deutschlandfunk.de , Kultur heute , September 11, 2012, Ursula Welter : Freedom, Equality, Thrift (December 10, 2016)
- ↑ derstandard.at , September 10, 2012: derstandard.at: France cancels large cultural projects (December 10, 2016)
- ↑ projet-lascaux.com ( Memento of the original from September 22, 2016 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. (French)
- ↑ badische-zeitung.de , December 10, 2016, Stephan Clauss, Michael Heilemann: Huge cave of Lascaux reconstructed true to the original for the third time (December 10, 2016)
- ↑ Don's Maps (accessed May 20, 2011)
- ↑ BBC News (accessed May 20, 2011)
