Cosquer Cave

Cosquer Cave
Image courtesy culture.gouv.fr

Cosquer Cave is located at Cape Morgiou, in the Calanques (Calanques are limestone cliffs very steep and with very deep waters with steep and dangerous shores), near Marseilles. It can be accessed through a tunnel 175 metres in length, which is 37 metres under the sea level due to the rise of the Mediterranean in Paleolithic times. It was discovered by diver Henri Cosquer in 1985, but its contents were not made public until 1991, when three divers became lost in the cave and tragically died.

In 1991 Cosquer made his fifth attempt to reenter with a new batch of experienced divers from his own club. This time they entered the other lake; from there Cosquer noticed an image of a human hand on the walls and was photographed. Reaching home when the films were developed he could notice two more hands and a feeling that they have bumped upon something marvelous began to haunt them. If Cosquer was not lucky enough to notice the ‘hand’ and the outside world would never have come to know about this prehistoric treasure that existed.

Stencil of a human hand dated 27,000 BCE, 

shown at the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale

(National Museum Archeology)

in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France

The most unique feature of this cave is that it contains several dozen works painted and engraved between 27,000 and 19,000 years ago, decorated with a variety of land animals, penguins, cats, and engravings on the walls, but also with seals and auks, fifty-five hand stencils, and numerous digital markings, dozens of geometric symbols, as well as the extraordinary representation of a "slain man".

Caves were the initial homes of men and he could not but give expression to his artistic talents on its walls during resting or idle times may be the usual concept of the images those appear on the walls of caves. But David Lewis Williams states that there is a pattern in the carvings and images on the walls of caves and that would not have done as a time pass. His studies based on ethnography pictures of things happened in the ‘Cro-Magnon arts in the following pattern.

References:

"Cosquer Cave" - Accessed on 25 January 2012

About the Author

I'm Jose Pierre and I like learning about all aspects of culture, both ancient and modern. I enjoy learning how they communicated, expressed themselves, and their technology.