Marcin Krygier 🇺🇦🇬🇪🇮🇱🏳️‍🌈

The Cosquer Cave (Marseille, France) was discovered in 1985 by a diver, Henri Cosquer, deep under the sea (the original entrance is about 115 feet below present-day sea level) but its paintings were not mentioned until 1991 after three divers died in the cave when they got lost... . . . In 1985, the diver Henri Cosquer was exploring the Calanques near Marseille when he found a tunnel opening 37 metres below the surface of the Mediterranean. The tunnel runs about 175 metres through the rock and rises into dry chambers whose walls are covered in prehistoric art. People painted there in two phases, around 27,000 and 19,000 years ago. Back then sea levels were far lower and the coast was kilometres away, so they simply walked in. They left dozens of hand stencils, along with horses, bison and ibex, and even sea creatures like seals and great auks, a seabird that is now extinct. The gallery slopes up for about 360 feet under water before reaching a huge chamber that partly remained above the sea and where many prehistoric paintings and engravings are preserved on the walls, as well as remains on the ground (charcoal from fires and torches, a few flint tools). This is the only painted cave in the world with an entrance below present-day sea level where cave art has been preserved from the flooding that occurred when the seas rose after the end of the last glaciation (Clottes & Courtin 1994, 1996). Right from the start, it was obvious that the discovery of the Cosquer Cave was both an important and original art find. It was located in a provence of France near Marseilles, an area where no Palaeolithic art had ever been discovered. This highlighted a supposedly well-known but rarely referred to problem, which is the disappearance of uncounted prehistoric caves under the sea all along the Mediterranean and other shores since Ice Age times. Several large caves are next to Cosquer. A number of them could have been - and probably were - lived in, painted or engraved. Despite the destructions due to the sea, Cosquer ranks among the few caves where more than 150 animal figures have been found. Hand stencils now total 65, the highest number in Europe except for Gargas (Hautes-Pyrénées) and possibly El Castillo in Spain. They are all located in the east side of the chamber, with one in the south. None is in the west. Right at the brink of a 57 feet deep vertical shaft – a location which in itself is significant - they are all black. On other panels, they may be black or red. One positive red hand has been found. A number of hand stencils have been scratched or painted over with dots and bars. Only adult hand stencils have been found. Many of them have incomplete fingers: they were realized by bending the fingers. Hand stencils with incomplete fingers had until very recently only been found in very few caves, mostly in the Pyrénées (Gargas, Tibiran, Fuente del Trucho). Now, we know that the phenomenon was far more widely represented than had been thought. The now established fact that roughly at the same time such hand stencils were being made in sites hundreds of miles apart should deal a death blow to the theory of pathologic mutilations. Today the Cosquer Cave is the only known painted cave whose entrance lies under the sea. It is also one of the most endangered. As sea levels keep rising, water is slowly creeping up the walls and erasing art that has survived since the Ice Age. The cave is too dangerous for visitors, and divers have died in its tunnel, so researchers raced to scan it in 3D. In 2022, a full-scale replica called Cosquer Méditerranée opened in Marseille so everyone can see the paintings before the sea takes them. #archaeohistories