Saturday, July 29, 2017

Painted Caves in France

I am listening to a book called Before the Dawn tonight that is about DNA and the earliest beginnings of man.  I like the book.  I am listening to a chapter that mentions the painted caves in France and I wanted to make a note.  The earliest caves that have been discovered are:

The earliest known European figurative cave paintings are those of Chauvet Cave in France. These paintings date to earlier than 30,000 BCE (Upper Paleolithic) according to radiocarbon dating.


The cave has been sealed off to the public since 1994. Access is severely restricted owing to the experience with decorated caves such as Lascaux found in the 20th century, where the admission of visitors on a large scale led to the growth of mold on the walls that damaged the art in places. In 2000 the archaeologist and expert on cave paintings Dominique Baffier was appointed to oversee conservation and management of the cave. She was followed in 2014 by Marie Bardisa.
Caverne du Pont-d'Arc, a facsimile of Chauvet Cave on the model of the so-called "Faux Lascaux", was opened to the general public on 25 April 2015.[26] It is the largest cave replica ever built worldwide, ten times bigger than the Lascaux facsimile. The art is reproduced full-size in a condensed replica of the underground environment, in a circular building above ground, a few kilometres from the actual cave.[27] Visitors’ senses are stimulated by the same sensations of silence, darkness, temperature, humidity and acoustics, carefully reproduced.[28]

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2013/may/26/prehistoric-cave-art-dordogne

https://archaeology-travel.com/thematic-guides/cave-art-in-france/


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