Lascaux Art

Lascaux: Explore prehistoric Lascaux art with this video tour of the Lascaux Caves. These Lascaux art paintings are at least 15,000 -17,000 years old as discussed in A Briefer History of Time at Violations.

The Lascaux Caves, a cave complex in south-western France, contain some of the most remarkable Palaeolithic cave paintings in the world. They were discovered by four teenagers and a dog (sound familiar?) in 1940 and opened to the public in 1948.

 The boys had been following a legend about secret treasure hidden in caves when the found was made.

The walls of the caves are literally covered in art work, however such was the interest in them that the Lascaux Caves were forced to close to the public in 1963 and have been closed and re-opened intermittently since that time due to deterioration to the paintings caused by carbon dioxide, fungi etc.

This video of the caves demonstrates the beauty of the art in their original context.