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The Lascaux Caves

The Lascaux Caves. Melissa Nolden 10-7-10. The Hall of Bulls.

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The Lascaux Caves

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  1. The Lascaux Caves Melissa Nolden 10-7-10

  2. The Hall of Bulls The Hall of the Bulls, also called the Rotunda, is an extension of the entrance zone. It is about 20 metres long, and it varies in width between 5.5 and 7.5 metres. Between the ceiling and the lower part, a corbelled zone contains nearly all of the iconography, which extends uninterrupted for some thirty metres on either side of the hall. The extremely white calcite walls helps to show off the beautiful wall paintings by contributing to the saturation of the colours.The images in the Hall of the Bulls are amongst the most striking in all of Palaeolithic art: 130 figures, including 36 representations of animals and some 50 geometric signs. This extensive frieze is composed of three animal themes – horses (17 individuals), cattle (11 cows and bulls) and deer (6 stags) – which recur consistently in the various parts of the cave. Exceptionally, a bear is also depicted.

  3. The Axial Gallery Figures appear on both sides of this 30-metre-long gallery. On the right are three panels, the Panel of the Chinese Horses, the Panel of the Falling Cow and the Red Panel, featuring two horses and a bison. To the left is the Panel of the Red Cows, the Panel of the Great Black Bull, the Panel of the Hemione and, to the rear, the Upside-Down Horse.The totality includes 161 graphic entities, of which 58 are figurative (mostly animals), and 46 are various geometric signs – quadrangular, branching, rectilinear, nested elements, cruciform and groups of dots. There are also 57 indeterminate figures that may be signs, but that also may be sketches for animal figures.We are now entering a space that has been called the "Sistine Chapel of Prehistory" – one of the pinnacles of human creative intelligence.

  4. The Passageway The Passageway links the Hall of the Bulls to the Nave and the Apse. It contains a great concentration of images that are often difficult to decipher. A total of 385 engraved and painted figures have been counted and identified, including horses, bison, ibexes, bovines, stags and various signs in the shapes of hooks, crosses and squares.

  5. The Nave There are four panels on the left wall of the Nave – those of the Seven Ibexes, the Imprint, the Great Black Cow and the Crossed Bison. The right wall contains only the Frieze of the Swimming Stags. The slope of the floor is the cause of this uneven distribution. The species depicted include horses, ibexes, stags, bison andaurochs, but in quite different proportions. As in every other part of the cave, horses are the dominant theme, with twenty-seven separate depictions in the Nave. The aurochs, on the other hand, appears only once, but dominates through its sheer size and its position at the centre of this vast tableau. There are also nine ibexes, six five bison, and six stags.

  6. The Chamber of Felines The Chamber of the Felines extends for roughly 25 metres, along which André Glory counted more than 80 figures. Of the 51 animal figures in this gallery, the horse is the dominant species, with twenty-nine representations, followed by nine bison, four ibexes and three stags. There are no aurochs. Images of felines are more present here, with six depictions, than in the rest of the cave.The distribution of the figures is uneven: 90% of them are found in the first several meters of the passage, which is the narrowest segment in the Chamber.

  7. The Apse On a wall space of some thirty square metres, and an average ceiling height of 3.5 metres, the Apse contains over a thousand figures. They include nearly 500 animals and 600 geometric signs or lines. They appear on the walls and ceiling, and with no interruption. Their density increases at the entrance at the far end, and reaches its peak in the Apsidiole, which is located at the base of the Shaft in the farthest part of this gallery. The very soft limestone surface provides a partial explanation for such a graphic outpouring. Lascaux's fame is essentially based on the paintings in the Hall of the Bulls, the Axial Gallery and the Nave. And yet, if we count the number of figures in the Apse, the Passageway, the Nave and the Chamber of the Felines, we see that the art of Lascaux is dominated by engravings.

  8. The Shaft In contrast to the preceding sectors – the Apse, the Passageway and the Hall of the Bulls – the Shaft contains only a limited number of figures: eight in all. Four are figures of animals (a horse, a bison, a bird and a rhinoceros) and three others are geometric shapes (dots and hooks). In the centre of the composition, the eye is drawn to a human figure.One notes on the right-hand wall a horse, and the left-hand wall contains all the other figures in a space about three metres square. This arrangement, made famous by its narrative potential, is one of the rare examples in which the subjects and themes refer to a specific episode, leaving us to imagine the possibility that this is a message to be interpreted. Hence the name that has been given to this panel: the "Shaft Scene".

  9. Sources http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/index.php?fichier=00.xml

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