Lascaux

Lascaux, an underground cave located above the Vézère Valley, near Montignac, in the Dordogne (south-western France) whose walls and ceilings bear some of the most important examples of Palaeolithic art so far discovered. The cave, formed in the Tertiary period, by the action of water percolating through cracks in the limestone above, consists of one large cavern known as the Hall of the Bulls and several smaller steep galleries; all are profusely decorated with some 1,500 engravings and about 600 paintings in shades of yellow, red, brown, and black.

The paintings consist overwhelmingly of animals, among them aurochs, oxen, horses, red deer, and ibex, accompanied by dots and geometric motifs of uncertain significance. In the Hall of the Bulls, relatively small figures of deer and horses are depicted together with huge bulls over 5 m (16 ft) long. The sheer scale of the paintings suggests that ladders and scaffolding must have been used; indeed, sockets for scaffolding beams are found in the cave. Lascaux is also notable for the isolated representation of a man, appearing as a stick figure in conjunction with a bull that he appears to have wounded. Other well-known groups of figures in the cave include that known as the Swimming Deer, a frieze of horned cervids shown in profile.

Charcoal, lamps, spear points, pigments, and engraving tools were discovered on the floor of the cave. Carbon-14 analysis of such organic material as the charcoal suggests that the cave was in use from about 15,000 bc, when most of the paintings were probably made, to as late as 9000 bc.

When the cave was discovered, the paintings were in a very fine state of preservation, stable levels of moisture and temperature within the cave providing an ideal environment for the preservation of pigments over thousands of years. Almost immediately after its discovery, the cave was opened to the public and the paintings began to deteriorate, colours beginning to fade and a green fungus to grow over the pigments. The cave was closed in 1963, but has been painstakingly replicated, as far as possible, using identical pigments and methods of mixing and application as those believed to have been used by the original artists. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. Lascaux II, as the replica is known, opened in 1983.