The Lascaux caves

The Lascaux caves, located near Montignac, were discovered in 1940 by four children looking for their dog which fell in a hole. The caves are made of two main rooms, "la Rotonde" and "l'Abside", and multiple corridors. The walls of the caves are covered with more than 1500 paintings with bulls, horses, lions, bears, rhinoceros, etc. This fantastic set of paintings is from the paléolithic area (- 17 000 years).

The caves were opened to the public in 1948, but due to the great number of visitors, the carbon dioxyde and humidity started to deteriorate the paintings. For preservation reasons, the caves were then closed to visitors in 1963.

In 1983 an exact copy was opened to public visits, 200m away from the original caves. Two galleries of paintings were reproduced: "La Salle des Taureaux" and "Le Diverticule Axial", which represent the majority of the Lascaux paintings. The volume and colours of the paintings have been copied to the least detail, and the atmosphere of the caves has been carefully reproduced.


Deer	Rhinoceros	Horses and deers