On this day in 1940, a dog and his master were out walking in the Dordgones in southwestern France when the dog, whose name was Robot fell through a hole in the ground. His master climbed down to get Robot and realized the hole led to a cave. The master came back later with three friends and lanterns. There were rumors that there was hidden treasure in the area.
They ended up with a different treasure than they expected. The walls of the caves were covered with hundreds of painting of wild animals. Some of the animals had been extinct for thousands of years. Robot had discovered the soon to be famous Lascaux Cave. The boys convinced a local historian that the paintings were worth looking at.
The historian started copying the paintings which was good, because as soon as the cave was unsealed, the paintings began to deteriorate. After the war was over, the tourists came bringing lots of carbon dioxide from their breathing, which allowed mold to grown on the walls of the cave. In 1963, the French government closed the cave to tourists.
Scientists determined the paintings had been created 17,000 years ago. It's thought the paintings were made to give the hunters control over the animals in the paintings. The artists would first have to chase any real bears out of the cave. They would have had to make the pigments for the paintings, and make lamps and build scaffolding to get to the higher spots in the cave.
Twenty years after the cave was closed to tourists, Lascaux II opened right next to the original cave. Lascaux II is a replica of two of the largest chambers of the cave. It's a huge tourist attraction. Lascaux III is a series of reproductions of the paintings that travels around the world. Lascaux IV is an even better replica which opened in 2016 in a nearby town.
Despite making this major discovery, the dog Robot immediately dropped out of sight again. I like to imagine Robot as having a good war delivering messages for the French Resistance. After the war he was hired to guard the entrance to prevent tourists with really high levels of CO2 from entering the cave.
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| When in doubt, play dead. |
I remember seeing a Lascaux Cave exhibit at the Des Moines Art Center when I was around eleven years old. I had won an art scholarship there in the sixth grade and spent a great deal of time touring the galleries and studios, then and afterwards; one of the most impressionable was the cave drawing exhibit of those in France.
ReplyDeleteA DOG story! You've won my heart, Mr. Chairman.
ReplyDeleteSorry to say that the best our two canines have done is dig up a dead skunk, and attack, chomp, and swallow some bees. Not exactly up to Robot standards.