Heather Cox Richardson
On September 12, 1940, a dog named Robot ran away in southwestern France. Robot’s owner, the teenaged Marcel Ravidat, along with three of his buddies—Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas—set out to find him. They found not only the straying dog, but also 900 other animals, all painted on the walls and ceilings of a complex of caves near the village of Montignac.
These dramatic paintings of more than 2000 images in total—including abstract figures, animals, and one human figure—make up the Lascaux cave paintings. They are estimated to be more than 17,000 years old. They are the world’s most famous collection of Paleolithic art.
Extensive tourism to the site changed the environment of the caves and encouraged the growth of fungus and mold, forcing authorities to close the caves to protect them. But anyone interested can take an on-line tour of the caves at: http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/. One can only imagine the awe, and perhaps the growing fear, of the boys as they saw the giant horses, ibexes, and bison from thousands of years before thundering across the ceilings of the caves.
The serendipity of the discovery of the Lascaux caves reminds me of the 2009 discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found. In that case, Terry Herbert decided to try out his metal detector in a farm field close to his home. When it started to beep, he turned up not old beer cans, but more than 3,500 items of gold and silver, inset with precious stones, made in the 6th to 8th centuries C.E.
The treasures of Lascaux can help us to understand the first expressions of human culture, and those of Staffordshire the culture of Anglo-Saxon artistry and warfare. For a historian, though, their discovery also represents the extraordinary excitement of discovering something new and unexpected in the world around us.
Blog Archive
Popular Posts
-
Randall Stephens It takes a certain temperament to be a historian. For example, you have to, at least on some level, enjoy rummaging throug...
-
Philip White Despite the company’s recent price increases, the decision to split its DVD delivery and streaming businesses and the lamentabl...
-
Jonathan Rees Today's guest post comes from Jonathan Rees, professor of history at Colorado State University - Pueblo. He's the auth...
-
Randall Stephens Jean de Venette (ca. 1308-ca. 1369), a Carmelite friar in Paris, wrote about the horrifying devastation brought on by the ...
-
Our first post comes from Heather Cox Richardson , professor of history at UMass, Amherst. Richardson is the author of a number of books on...
-
Heather Cox Richardson On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent his famous telegraph message, “What hath God wrought?” from the U.S. Capitol to hi...
-
History blogging is delicate proposition. I typically look for a topic which is sufficient to fill 3-5 paragraphs with perhaps that many lin...
-
Randall Stephens I regularly browse the Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division for pictures to illustrate essays, forums...
-
Heather Cox Richardson One hundred and fifty years ago this weekend, 75,000 Union and about 38,000 Confederate troops massed near Sharpsburg...
-
. This from a dear friend and colleague: The History Department at San Diego State University would like to announce its fundraising efforts...