Four teenage boys found the cave above the Vezere valley in September of nineteen forty, and it was in perfect condition. Inside are some six hundred painted and drawn animals and symbols and nearly fifteen hundred engravings, done in reds, blacks, browns and yellows on a light background. The cave opened to visitors in nineteen forty-eight. What happened to it?
It began to fail within fifteen years. The floor level was lowered to fit a walkway. Pedestrian traffic running to as many as a hundred thousand visitors a year, together with artificial lighting, faded the once-vivid colors and brought on growths of algae, bacteria and crystals. A huge amount of crucial archaeological information and material was destroyed. The cave closed again in nineteen sixty-three.
Lascaux sits above the Vezere River valley near Montignac in the Dordogne, and holds one of the most outstanding displays of prehistoric art yet discovered. Four teenage boys found it in September of nineteen forty, and the French archaeologist Henri Breuil studied it first. A main cavern about sixty-six feet wide and sixteen feet high opens onto several steep galleries.
The decoration is dense. Some six hundred painted and drawn animals and symbols and nearly fifteen hundred engravings cover the walls, in reds, blacks, browns and yellows on a light ground. Scaffolding was clearly used in places to reach the high walls and the ceiling. Among them are four huge in , a curious two-horned animal, red deer with fantastic antlers, six felines, two male bison, and a rare narrative scene at the bottom of a shaft.
Dating is the weak point. of some charcoal gives seventeen thousand years ago, and the orthodox view is a largely homogeneous collection spanning at most a few centuries either side of that. Other specialists are certain the art is a complex accumulation of episodes across a much longer period.
The cave was in perfect condition when found and opened to the public in nineteen forty-eight, with the floor lowered to take a walkway. Pedestrian traffic reaching a hundred thousand visitors a year, plus artificial lighting, faded the colors and brought algae, bacteria and crystals. Lascaux closed again in nineteen sixty-three; the crystal growth was halted and the algae and bacteria were reversed. Microorganisms were noted again in two thousand one, and daily monitoring continues. A partial replica, , opened nearby in nineteen eighty-three.
wat. The paintings survived seventeen thousand years underground and fifteen years of visitors.
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Seventeen thousand years of stability ended fifteen years after the doors opened, which is a hard limit on what public access to a sealed environment can cost.
How do we know?
Britannica’s entry on Lascaux sets out the discovery, the contents of the cave, the damage that followed public opening, the closure, and the monitoring that continues.
What is still unknown
Britannica attributes the damage to pedestrian traffic and artificial lighting rather than to any single factor, and notes that Lascaux is very poorly dated, with specialists disagreeing over how long its art took to accumulate.
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