The Cave of Forgotten Dreams

"Life is measured not by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away”….Anonymous

In 1994, three French speleologists made one of the greatest discoveries of the century. They found a huge cave, hidden from human eyes for tens of thousands of years, in which, on the walls, were drawn extraordinary figures of wild animals; including lions, rhinoceroses, cave bears, owls, horses, deer and others. Many of these animals have long been extinct and at first scientists thought that the drawings were done contemporaneously with other caves in France, such as Lascaux, maybe 16,000 years ago or so. But as the scientists examined the cave, mostly through carbon dating, they found that this artwork was done around 35,000 years ago, making it the oldest cave art ever discovered, by a long shot. I'll repeat that:  THIRTY FIVE THOUSAND years ago!!

Right away, the French government closed the cave to all but a few specialists. We found out about it because the film director, Werner Herzog, did a great documentary about it, The Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Herzog and his film crew were allowed in the cave a couple of times and made a really good film. At the end of the film, Herzog said that the French government was planning on building a perfect replica so the public could see the cave. It took almost three years, but in 2015 the replica, Le Caverne de Pont d'Arc was opened to the public. 


The discoverers of the cave, Christian Hillaire, Jean Marie Chauvet and Eliette Brunelle...

The replica from above

An artists works on the replica...

The way you see the replica cave is on a guided tour, with groups of 20 leaving every 5 minutes. You have a headphone with a not so good translation of what the guide is talking about. The replica is amazingly done. The original cave was scanned with a 3D scanner, so it's all done in perfect detail. Not only the art was perfectly replicated, but the ceiling, walls, stalagmites, stalagmites and floor, containing cave bear skulls, footprints (including the oldest human footprint ever found) and other bones. 

The artwork itself is beautiful, what we would think of as a modern style, maybe because Picasso copied similar art for his paintings. And there is so much mystery to these people. What did they believe?  Why is there only one human figure in the whole cave?  Why did they do their art hidden away in a dark cave?  We will never know the answers. And there are not only animals depicted, but hundreds of human handprints, all done in red, the 'signatures' of the artists. In fact, because at least one of the handprints has a bent little finger and this same handprint appears in different areas of the cave, we can identify at least one artist from long ago. 

I can't really describe the art, its best just to see it. So here you go...

Horses...

Lions...

Bison...

Rhinoceroses...

An owl looking backwards, carved on the wall...

Handprints