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Font de Gaume

Click on the photos to see an enlarged version

The photo shows the entrance to Font de Gaume Cave, under the cliff known also as Font de Gaume

Located near Les Eyzies, on the Sarlat road, Font-de-Gaume Cave is a showpiece of Magdalenian engravings and paintings from around 14 000 BC. The flints (chisels, scrapers, blades) and other things found in the cave during the excavations testify to a continual occupation since the Mousterian age, or the age of the Neandertals.

Discovered in 1901 by D. Peyrony, the Cave, 130 m long, contains about 250 paintings. The visitor can only see 30 of them, the most beautiful ones and the best preserved. After 60 m underground, the "Rubicon" is the beginning of the decorated part of the cave, with red dots on the left wall. These caves were not used as dwellings, they were shrines, according to A. Leroi-Gourhan

Text and photo: "Font-de-Gaume Cave" - Editions Pierre Fanlac.
My thanks to Anyasun for finding this book.

Font de Gaume
This cave has never been closed by natural causes, as Lascaux was for example, which explains the bad state of the paintings. Though paintings are everywhere in the cave, they have not been seen (again) before 1901 (by the man who also discovered Combarelle a few weeks before). Kids of Les Eyzies used to play there and they carved their names and dates on the walls, sometimes destroying what the (supposed) Magdalenians did. Added to that, water deposited some calcite on the walls, hiding most of the paintings-carvings.

Photo: Utika 2002

Plan de la grotte de Font-de-Gaume

Photo: (d'après l'Atlas des cavernes. Imprimerie Nationale)
http://www.culture.fr/culture/conservation/fr/grottes/Pageshtm/4-4.htm

This is a big rock near the entrance of Font de Gaume. Ayla (from the book 'Shelters of Stone' by Jean Auel) says it looks like the face of the Mother.

Photo: Utika 2002

Painting of a wolf in Font de Gaume after Breuil, from a postcard. My thanks to Anyasun for bringing it to my attention.

What is so special with Font de Gaume is that the animals are carved, then painted inside the carving. It's a great thing, because if the paint disappeared, most of the carving can still be seen. Recently, about 3 years ago, they renovated the ground of the cave for tourists. Before doing that, they studied the walls again, to be sure they did not miss any paintings.

And they discovered something like 180 new 'things', from animals to simple signs. Most of them are behind a layer of calcite, and can be seen only with a UV or IR light. Utika says 'the guide showed the visitors a really cute little mammoth, about the size of my hand that they missed before. That is also then that they discovered the wolf. Only the carved part of that wolf survived' The entrance of Font de Gaume is on the right. On the left, it's only a small cavity - small compared to the cave itself (nowadays used to leave bags, and everything that could touch the walls by mistake during the visit). This is the natural shape, but they modified the floor to make it flat.

Photo of Font de Gaume and text: Utika 2002

After the "Rubicon", it's possible to see the first paintings - twelve mammoths and bisons. Delicately engraved outlines are enhanced by a black line. The paint is applied after on the limestone wall. Mainly two colors : black for male animals, and red for females, often gravid (pregnant) ones.

Text and photo: "Font-de-Gaume Cave" - Editions Pierre Fanlac.
My thanks to Anyasun for finding this book.

Les hauts lieux de la préhistoire dans la vallée de la Vézère sont essentiels à la connaissance de l'expression symbolique paléolithique (~35 000 / ~9 000 av. J-C.) avec notammement les grottes de Font-de-Gaume, des Combarelles et l'abri du Poisson (Les Eyzies-de-Tayac).

Galerie principale, seconde partie, paroi de gauche, Frise des cinq bisons, sujet de gauche.
Text and photo: Postcard from Monum, Éditions du patrimoine

This is a closeup of the left most bison in the photo above of mammoths and bisons. My thanks to Anya for sending this postcard.

On the left wall, just before the crossroads is the famous scene of a male reindeer licking a kneeling female reindeer, with a line of other reindeer behind. It's possible to see the black reindeer tongue brushing the female forehead.

Text and photo: "Font-de-Gaume Cave" - Editions Pierre Fanlac.
My thanks to Anyasun for finding this book.

Bison et cervidé de la Frise noire.

Bison and deer on the black panel.

Photo from: Agenda de la Préhistoire 2002 - 2003, a superb diary with excellent illustrations sent to me by Anya. My thanks as always.

Ensemble des peintures du carrefour

Another view of the Bison and deer on the black panel at the crossroads.

Photo from: a Castelet postcard sent to me by Anya. My thanks as always.

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