A permanent virtual exhibit of one of France’s most famous prehistoric sites, the undersea Cosquer Cave, is set to open its doors as concerns grow that it could be completely inundated as a result of rising tides driven by climate change.
As of Saturday, visitors to the port city of Marseille will be able to see the Cosquer Mediterranee, a replica of the over 30,000-year old site. The visual and audio “experience” features copies of the prehistoric paintings that made the cave internationally famous.
The Cosquer Cave was discovered in 1985 by diver Henri Cosquer, in deep waters off the Marseille coastline. The original entrance is about 115 feet below present-day sea level, but its paintings were not mentioned until 1991 after three divers died in the cave when they got lost.
The gallery slopes up for about 360 feet under water before reaching a huge chamber that partly remained above the sea and where many prehistoric paintings and engravings are preserved on the walls, as well as remains on the ground (charcoal from fires and torches, a few flint tools). This is the only painted cave in the world with an entrance below present-day sea level where cave art has been preserved from the flooding that occurred when the seas rose after the end of the last glaciation
Years in the making, the replica exhibit offers the chance to the public to discover the cave of which only 20% currently remains dry and accessible. Officials say the cave’s remaining dry areas are under threat of being flooded because of the effects of climate change.
Discovery of the Cosquer Cave was both an important and original art find. It was located in a provence of France near Marseilles, an area where no Palaeolithic art had ever been discovered. This highlighted a supposedly well-known but rarely referred to problem, which is the disappearance of uncounted prehistoric caves under the sea all along the Mediterranean and other shores since Ice Age times. Several large caves are next to Cosquer. A number of them could have been – and probably were – lived in, painted or engraved.
Despite the destructions due to the sea, Cosquer ranks among the few caves where more than 150 animal figures have been found. Cosquer Cave used to be one of the most important cave art sites in Europe, comparable to Lascaux, Trois-Frères, Altamira or Chauvet. Only a small part of the art is now left. Exploring the submerged passages and chambers has shown that between three quarters to four fifths of the whole network is now under water where the walls and vaults are corroded by the sea and by the shells and algae so that no painting or engraving could be preserved.
As all the parts of the cave which were accessible where the water did not reach are covered with engravings, finger flutings and drawings, it can be safely assumed that it was more or less the same in most of the submerged chambers: the level of the sea could not coincidentally have stopped just before the places where the art happened to be. Therefore there could originally have been anything between 400 and 800 animal figures in the cave. (AP)
You must be logged in to post a comment.