Painting from the Lascaux cave in The Anthropos Pavilion
of The Moravian Museum, 2009
(Brno, Czech Republic)
PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

2001: Installation of the new air system is completed. A new fungus spreads on the floor and on outcroppings below the decorated walls. “It looks as if it had snowed inside the cave. Everything was covered in white,” Godin reports. In September, the LRMH identifies the fungus as Fusarium solani, a virulent mold that commonly infects soil and crops and often proves so drug resistant that whole crop fields must be dug up and burned. Fungicides are sprayed but the fungus returns. The treatment leaves large dark spots of fungi and bacteria four to six inches in diameter on the walls. Several tons of quicklime are spread out over the floor to sterilize the cave but this operation only raises the temperature. The new air system is shut down as it is now deemed inappropriate for the cave.

2002: A new scientific commission is appointed by Christine Albanel, the Minister of Culture “to evaluate the effects of emergency treatments and their effect on the preservation of the paintings and engraving.” Virtually no news of their deliberations reach the archeological community, let alone the general public. At this point it appears that four different individuals — Oudin, Geneste, Pallot-Frossard, and Albanel — are responsible for the cave’s well-being with no one authority held accountable. There is no independent international oversight. While the fungi and molds are retreating, bacteria is still growing in the large dark spots.

2003: Teams of workers, dressed in hooded biohazard suits, booties and face masks, move inside and out of the cave regularly over the next several years, mechanically removing the fungi by its roots. The first articles breaking the silence around Lascaux appear in La Researche, and Le Point. Laurence Léauté-Beasley and her husband, Bruce Beasley, a California sculptor, along with a group of international artists, form the International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux (ICPL). For the past seven years the ICPL has fought to break the silence and to counter the misleading statements of the authorities.

There is no independent international oversight. While the fungi and molds are retreating, bacteria is still growing in the large dark spots. Teams of workers, dressed in hooded biohazard suits, booties and face masks, move inside and out of the cave regularly over the next several years…

2006: New colonies of black spots appear near the cave’s entrance. They are reported but not immediately analyzed or treated. In May 2006, Léauté-Beasley induces Time magazine to do a cover story on the cave’s situation. In writing about the Lascaux situation for The Wall Street Journal, Lee Rosenbaum reports that Geneste “was fuming about the Time article which suggested that the stewardship of the cave had been botched and that its 17,000-year-old paintings were in jeopardy.” Geneste also tells Rosenbaum that “there is no damage to the paintings. The situation is stable. The growth of fungi have disappeared naturally from the paintings.” Someone from the scientific commission set up in 2002 is said to have commented: “They tell us the cave’s situation is stable. But that’s what they said about Ariel Sharon.” At the time Geneste makes the above statement, the teams of workers are in the cave three days a week removing fungi roots. Root extractions are leaving dark marks and circles on the paintings.

By the year’s end the black spots have spread throughout the cave, covering some paintings and many of the engravings (including those in the Apse). Biologists are unable to determine the species, cause and treatment of these spots.

The sparkling white calcite crystal wall of The Rotunda, which served as an extraordinary background for the painted animals, has turned gray.

In an effort to remove responsibility from the LRMH, Pallot-Frossard claims that Lascaux’s crisis is simply a continuation of the old 1963 problems.