Around 4,000 years ago, Neolithic painters in south-eastern France immortalized warriors, battle scenes and burials on a cliff. Now 120 of their works have just been discovered.
The Vallee Des Merveilles is the largest European proto-historic site Image: Marc Charuel/Photo12/picture alliance
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As the French regional newspaper La Provence reported on Wednesday, the paintings were discovered on a cliff in the Mercantour National Park in the French Maritime Alps, only about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the "Vallee des Merveilles," or the "Valley of Wonders," which is known for its some 40,000 Stone Age rock engravings.
The newly discovered paintings, which are estimated to be 4,000 years old, depict warriors, combat operations and funerals.
The President of the Mediterranean Alps Institute of Prehistory and Archaeology Prehistory, Claude Salicis, is enthusiastic about the find.
As he reported to the newspaper Nice-Matin, until this new find, only two paintings of this type had been identified in the entire district. "Here we have 120 at once. That means that this site is one of the most important in all of Provence," he said.
According to Salicis, the Stone Age painters ground up the local sedimentary rock, mixed it with colored pigments and applied their motifs with their fingers.
Marcel and Loic Pietri, father and son, discovered the paintings while climbing. The cliff that overlooks the hamlet of La Roche has been used for hiking and climbing for a number of years, but they were the first to notice the works.
The two explorers are deeply rooted in their home region and know the area around Valdeblore near the Italian border very well.
These are other engravings from the Vallee des MerveillesImage: Herve Champollion/akg-images/picture-alliance
A sacred location for Ligurian warriors
Lime was removed from the rock face several times in the past. Certainly some prehistoric works were destroyed.
Salicis suspects that the cliff was a sacred place for the Celto-Ligurian warriors of the Neolithic Age.
Unlike the famous Lascaux cave paintings in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, the newly discovered works have been exposed to wind and weather for thousands of years. Nevertheless, the scenes are clearly recognizable.
Traces of humans and "archaic human species," as they are called, go back up to a million years in the French Mediterranean region.
Lascaux cave paintings in France were discovered 80 years ago
The cave drawings of animals are thought to date back to the Stone Age. Discovered by accident, the ancient artwork has been replicated twice in order to protect the originals from deteriorating.
Image: DW/B.Kaps
Lascaux cave discovered in 1940
Lascaux is in southwest France. In September 1940, four teenagers discovered the cave — actually a series of connecting chambers — containing ancient Upper Paleolithic art. To protect the drawings, the cave was closed to visitors in 1963. In 1983, a partial copy of the cave was opened. However, it was located too close to the original, so a new, complete copy was built further from the real cave.
Image: DW/B.Kaps
Strikingly realistic
This red cow is among the 1,963 drawings dating back 20,000 years that were found in the Lascaux cave. The pigment has faded over the millennia. According to experts, the original and copy are indistinguishable from each other.
Image: DW/B.Kaps
The Chinese horse
The cave artists used mineral-based pigments, which is why researchers cannot precisely pinpoint when the art originated. They based their estimate on other objects found in the cave, like spearheads made of bones and horns that were decorated with symbols similar to those found on the walls.
Image: DW/B.Kaps
The Lascaux workshop
The replica exhibition, located in an international center for cave art called Lascaux 4, includes information for visitors. After viewing the complete replica, individual paintings are displayed at eye-level in a section called the Lascaux workshop. What do the numbers mean? Lascaux I is the original cave, Lascaux 2 is the first reproduction, and Lascaux 3 is a traveling exhibition.
Image: DW/B.Kaps
Overlapping paintings
Many generations of artists were at work in the cave, and paintings and engravings were created on top of older ones, which is difficult for non-experts to make out. In the Lascaux workshop, individual artworks are projected onto a screen in chronological order. A herd of horses is hidden beneath the large cow and upon closer inspection, a three-sided emblem becomes visible.
Image: DW/B.Kaps
Details spring to life
Wild horses gallop across the wall, jumping, frolicking and mating. But in the cave, they are covered up by a large black cow. In the pedagogical portion of the Lascaux 4 center, the various layers of paintings are separated and the details made visible thanks to modern technology.
Image: DW/B.Kaps
Cave was a haven, not a home
Archaeologist Jean-Pierre Chadelle is one of the experts who has worked in the Lascaux cave. People never lived in the original cave, he said, because no trash or remains of fires have been found there. It's possible that the cave was used as a refuge from snow storms. The artworks originated during the Ice Age, when the Alpine glaciers extended to what is now the city of Lyon.
Image: DW/B.Kaps
International Center for Cave Art
The long gray structure right next to the replicated Lascaux cave, which blends right into the surroundings, was designed by the Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta. A path leads from the flat roof to the hidden entrance of the cave replica, which is located eight meters (26 feet) underground.
Image: DW/B.Kaps
Tracing art then and now
After visiting Lascaux, Picasso is rumored to have said, "We've learned nothing since then!" In the center, the "Galerie de l'imaginaire," or imagination gallery, shows how cave paintings are connected to modern and contemporary art. In this interactive digital gallery, visitors can build their own exhibition with old and new works of art.
