By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
MONTIGNAC, France -- The regal black bull painted by a Stone Age artist on a cave wall in southwestern France 17,000 years ago has survived millennia of war and pestilence just a few yards above its subterranean gallery.
Today the prehistoric bovine could face annihilation by an army of encroaching black mold spots, the latest in a series of threats unwittingly brought in over the years by tourists, scientists and bureaucrats.
"Each time we try to resolve one problem, we create another," said Marie-Anne Sire, the cave administrator who coordinates the scientific teams trying to save the endangered reindeer, potbellied ponies and woolly rhinos of the Lascaux cave, which contains one of the world's most famous collections of prehistoric art.
The extraordinary creatures -- hundreds of exquisite beasts etched and painted across the undulating walls and ceilings of large underground cavities -- have become part of an international struggle to rescue prehistoric artifacts from the missteps of modern man.
Lascaux is the focus of a growing, Internet-driven global debate: Should heritage sites become laboratories reserved, in the interests of preservation, for study exclusively by scientists? Or are they such an important part of the patrimony of humanity that they should be open to the public, despite the inherent risks of damage?
"The art of Lascaux is a legacy belonging to all mankind," the U.S.-based International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux notes on its Web site. The cave "redefined what was previously known about our creative development as human beings and our ability to construct image from abstract thought."
The whimsical horses, bears, reindeer and bison demonstrate an understanding of visual depth and movement among Cro-Magnon artists that did not emerge in modern-era art until a few centuries ago. The creatures seem to move over the walls' uneven surfaces -- a herd of reindeer fording a river, horses galloping amid cattle, ibex leaping through space.
Scientists can only speculate on the original purpose of the cave and the meaning of recurring geometric symbols found among the 600 paintings and 1,500 etchings on its walls. The most commonly accepted theory is that Lascaux and other art-filled caves in the region were sanctuaries where Stone Age people worshiped.
The cave was rediscovered in 1940 by four children who, with their dog, explored a hole opened by a fallen tree. The youngsters reported their amazing find to their schoolteacher, and experts on cave art quickly authenticated the gallery as one of the world's most extraordinary Paleolithic art sites.
In the years immediately after World War II, France's people scrambled to get by in a still severely damaged economy. The caves were on private land, and the owners, the La Rochefoucauld family, decided to open them to the public. They enlarged the entrance, built steps and replaced the original sediment with concrete flooring.
Like many historic sites, Lascaux quickly became a victim of its fame. The caves were besieged by hordes of tourists whose breath raised levels of damaging carbon dioxide, and by killer fungus, microbes and black spots.
Conditions became so perilous that French authorities closed the cave to most tourists 25 years ago. Nearby, a precise replica of the two most famous rooms in the cave was created to accommodate the tourist crowds.
Now, in yet another troubling twist, the reproductions are becoming so faded that scientists are debating a major restoration project for the fake cave.
The bigger concern, of course, is the real cave. In January of this year, authorities took the extraordinary step of closing it for three months even to scientists and preservationists. A single individual was allowed to enter the cave for 20 minutes once a week to monitor climatic conditions.
Now only a few scientific experts are allowed to work inside the cave and just for a few days a month. French officials say it could remain closed to the wider scientific community for two or three more years.
The keeper of the cave is Sire, a 48-year-old restoration expert whose previous specialty was restoring medieval paintings on the exteriors of churches. As cave administrator, she coordinates the work of a 25-member team of biologists, conservationists, restorers, archaeologists and other specialists.
Sitting in her small office in a thick oak forest just outside the entrance to the cave, Sire described the team's efforts to save Lascaux as nothing short of a scientific nightmare.
Scientists have inherited a history of missteps and misunderstandings of the cave's inner workings from the day its owners opened it to visitors and the problems they brought.
Over the decades, almost every attempt to eradicate problems has spawned new dangers. A formaldehyde foot wash, for instance, used for years to disinfect people entering the cave, ended up killing off friendly organisms that might have prevented fungus from growing.
Sire took over as cave administrator in 2002 during a white fungus outbreak that followed installation of an air-conditioning system designed to keep harmful microorganisms from taking root.
The fungus covered the floor of the caves and was creeping up the walls toward wild animals painted in brilliant hues of orange, yellow, brown and black, ground from the rocks and minerals of the surrounding area.
"I was shocked," she recalled. "It looked as though it had snowed."
Fearful that the fungus would gobble the paintings, experts poured quicklime powder on the floors and wrapped the walls in cotton bandages soaked in fungicide and antibiotics.
As soon as the white fungus began to disappear, scientists launched a major project to record the condition of every animal in the cave in a computer simulation. Two people worked 30 hours a week under lights to record every spot of fungus, every crack and every abnormality on each of the cave's creatures.
And then the black spots started appearing, heading rapidly toward black bulls and other beasts.
"Despite the limitation of human presence, the use of lights must have hurt," Sire said. "We didn't know we were taking such a risk."
A small team of workers clad in protective suits sprayed ammonia-based solutions on the spots, and the cave was sealed in January.
When scientists reentered the cave in April, Sire said, "I was holding my breath."
Though the black spots had stopped spreading in nine of the 11 treated zones, they remain a serious danger to engravings in the smaller sections of the cave that are the most susceptible to temperature and humidity changes.
Sire said the scientific team is divided over how to proceed. Members will meet next week to determine whether to continue treating the black spots or halt further intervention.
"Microbiologists and geologists say we have to observe and understand what's happening first, that we can't disturb the cave. They don't agree with the treatment," Sire said. "Other groups say the risk is too big to watch and take no action."
The International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux has criticized what it considers years of inept response and secrecy surrounding the work.
Sire is one of the French officials listed on the group's Web site, http://www.savelascaux.org, under the scathing headline "Who is Responsible for the Debacle inside Lascaux?"
Sire said she understands the anger.
"Because the cave is not open, the world is afraid for Lascaux," she said, adding that "we have nothing to hide."
She conceded her own frustrations: "It's a big problem -- what to do, how to choose. The questions are not easy to resolve. Lascaux is in the hands of doctors who don't have the same diagnoses.
"We have to choose between reacting or not acting," she continued. "Acting is dangerous; not acting is dangerous, too."
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