1965-67: A new cooling system to control and regulate temperature, carbon dioxide and humidity levels is installed. It processes Lascaux’s natural convection currents to regulate and maintain the cave’s delicate climate. The scientific commission determines that the problems had arisen primarily from the size of the tourist groups and the amount of time they had spent in the cave (thus raising its temperature and altering its humidity) as well as the pollen and spores brought in on the tourist’s shoes. The commission decides that once stabilized the cave can be opened five days a week to five people for a visit not exceeding 40 minutes. All visitors are required to decontaminate the soles of their shoes by immersing them in a formalin solution before leaving the airlock chamber guarding the cave’s entrance.

Reproductions of Lascaux artworks in Lascaux II, 2008
BY Jack Versloot
IMAGE LICENSED UNDER Creative Commons
Attribution 2.0 Generic License

1972: Given the popularity of Lascaux and the impossibility of now accommodating tourist visits, it is decided to build a replica of part of the cave. The entrance to a quarry several hundred meters downhill from the original cave is chosen as the site. Only the Rotunda and the Axial Gallery, which contains most of the paintings, but none of the engravings, will be replicated. Construction is begun in the late 1970s and completed in the early 1980s. Lascaux II is a work of modeled concrete reproducing the smallest details in the relief of the original to within a few inches. The Dordogne painter Monique Pétral reproduces all the drawings and paintings from these two galleries.

1976: Lascaux is stabilized, and the scientific commission disbands. At this point Jacques Marsal becomes the primary caretaker and guide of the cave until his death in 1989. For the following twenty-two years there are no problems in the cave. My wife Caryl and I visited Lascaux six times between 1974 and 1997.

1998: An engineer from the Research Laboratory for Historical Monuments (LRMH) notices lichen growing in the cave. Jean-Michel Geneste, who became curator of the cave in 1992, and is in charge of research, apparently takes no action.

1999: Philippe Oudin, who will supervise all construction work in the cave from this point on, decides to replace the old air system with a new one designed to improve it by using two massive high-powered fans to move the air about. A refrigeration and plumbing company, with no cave experience, is given the contract.

2000: Installation of the new equipment begins. Workers are instructed to wash their feet, limit working hours, and stay out of the painted areas of the cave. Geneste, who accepts the construction plans and supposedly oversees the installation (he visits once a week) comments that “The workers often ignored us and did not disinfect their feet. They didn’t keep the door closed all they time; they wanted to get the job done quickly.” He does not say why he did not reprimand or stop them. Isabelle Pallot-Frossard, Director of the LRMH, responsible for monitoring the cave’s biological conditions, makes no inspections during this period. The new installation involves removing the roof from the airlock chamber, where the old equipment is housed. The roof is replaced by a thin sheet of metal that allows drenching rains to pour into the chamber and the cave entrance. An art restorer, Rosalie Godin, who visits the cave at this time, describes the work site as a swamp, with construction waste all over the place. “It was an apocalyptic vision,” she states. Because of the disruption of the cave’s climatological balance, fungi begin to appear in the equipment chamber, and in one year have colonized the cave.