Paleolithic art. Altamira Cave (Spain)

The Altamira Cave is located in the province of Cantabria in northern Spain. It is 30 km west of the seaside town of Santander. This natural formation is notable for its rock paintings, which experts attribute to the Late Paleolithic era. This is the so-called Madeleine culture. It was common in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Spain 8-15 thousand years BC. e.

This time is characterized by the end of the Ice Age, and the carriers of the culture lived by hunting mammoths, deer and other large animals. Bone processing was well developed, and flint incisors were made. People lived in caves and also made homes from animal bones and skins. They decorated their stone dwellings with wall paintings depicting animals and hunting scenes. Subsequently, the Madeleine culture was replaced by the Azilian culture.

Tourists in the Altamira cave

Discovery of the Altamira Cave

The entrance to the cave was first discovered in 1868 by a hunter named Modesto Cubillas. His dog got stuck in a crevice between the rocks while chasing prey. Freeing the animal, the man found the entrance. Modesto reported his discovery to paleontology enthusiast Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola. However, he visited this remarkable place only in 1875 and did not find anything unusual in this natural formation.

The next time the amateur paleontologist came to the cave only in the summer of 1879, together with his 8-year-old daughter Maria Faustina. The man set out to excavate the entrance to the cave in order to find in it the remains of bones and silicon, which he saw at an exhibition in Paris in 1878.

Drawings in the Altamira Cave depicting animals

The unique drawings were discovered by the girl, and not by her father. The little girl went downstairs to a side room and saw several paintings on the ceiling. At this time, the father was at the entrance and heard his daughter’s enthusiastic screams. He hurried to her, and his eyes saw the unique splendor of rock paintings depicting ancient animals.

The following year, 1880, Sautuola published a small pamphlet entitled "Short Notes on Some Prehistoric Objects in the Province of Santander" with graphic pictures. He transferred his work to the University of Madrid. However, experts took it with hostility, and considered the rock paintings in the cave to be falsifications.

The amateur paleontologist died in 1888. And in 1895, similar caves were discovered in France. After this, the significance of Santander's discovery was rethought. The Altamira Cave and its historical value were fully recognized in 1902. In 1985 it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Description of the Altamira cave

This unique formation is located in a limestone hill. The entrance to the cave is located at an altitude of 120 meters above the Sai River. About 13 thousand years ago it collapsed. This created a seal and allowed the rock art to be preserved. The length of the cave itself is 270 meters. It consists of a gallery and halls. The largest or main hall is 18 meters long, 9 meters wide and 2.5 to 5.5 meters high. There are handmade drawings on the walls and ceiling. In prehistoric times, light entered this room from an opening at the top. Humidity is 94-97%, temperature is 13.5-14.5 degrees Celsius.

Altamira Museum Complex from a bird's eye view

In other rooms and corridors, the images have less artistic significance. They were always out of reach of the sun's rays and were performed under artificial lighting. Fire was used for these purposes, and the fuel for it was mainly bone marrow. Proof of this is the large number of broken bones found under the drawings.

Rock paintings were painted with charcoal, hematite, ocher and other natural paints. Boars, bison, wild horses, and other animals are depicted, and there are also prints of human palms. The age of the drawings made with charcoal is 14 thousand years. And the drawings made using humic fractions have an approximate age of 14.5 thousand years.

Restoration work in the cave

Tourism

In the 60-70s of the 20th century, the Altamira cave was extremely popular among tourists. More than 1.5 thousand people visited it per day. As a result of such excitement, the drawings became covered with mold. In 1977, this historical site was closed for restoration. It was reopened only in 1982, but with a limited visit of no more than one tourist group per day and 8.5 thousand visitors per year. People signed up and waited for years.

In 2002, the cave was closed again due to mold. They opened on February 26, 2014, but were limited to 5 visitors per day and 37 minutes per day for viewing. However, a museum complex with copies of cave images was located nearby in 2001. So anyone can get acquainted with the unique artistic creations of antiquity without visiting the cave itself. Copies of the drawings are also available in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, in museums in Germany and Japan.

Altamira Cave on the map of Spain
(red circle above)

“After Altamira, everything is in decline! None of the modern artists could paint something like this."
Pablo Picasso

The discovery of the Altamira Cave revolutionized views on primitive art. True, this revolution took place, as they say, “in hindsight” and did not bring laurels to the discoverer himself, which can serve as another alarming sign for seekers of lifetime glory.

1879 In America, Iowa jeweler Abner Peeler invents the airbrush. In Paris, after many years of failures at official Salons, Edouard Manet finally receives recognition. The VII exhibition of the Itinerants takes place in St. Petersburg, after which Arkhip Kuindzhi leaves the partnership. Kazimir Malevich was born in Kyiv.

As for primitive art, by this moment its existence is, in general, no longer a sensation. In 1836, the famous archaeologist Edouard Larte found in the Grotto of Chaffaux (France) an engraved plate (published in 1861):

He also discovered an image of a mammoth on a piece of mammoth bone in the La Madeleine grotto:

During the same years, drawings were also found in other caves. The prominent paleontologist F. Garrigou, excavating layers in the “Black Salon” of the Nio cave in France in 1864, noticed on the wall drawings of wild horses, mountain goats, as well as bison, which had not lived in these parts for a long time. He was not particularly interested in what he saw. “There are drawings on the rock walls. Who could have made them? - he wrote in his notebook, and forgot about them (Nio’s “Black Salon” was officially “discovered” by science only in September 1906).

Directly in the year of the discovery of Altamira (according to other sources, a year earlier - in 1878), archaeologist L. Chiron discovered rock engravings in the Chabot Grotto (France), but photographs of the drawings were ignored by the scientific world.

The story of the discovery of the “Sistine Chapel” of prehistoric art, as the Altamira Cave would later be called, is fanned with a romantic aura, but also full of genuine tragedy. A large Spanish landowner and lover of antiquities, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, after visiting Paris at the World Exhibition, where he saw the tools and decorations of primitive man, was inspired, remembered the stories of his servants about a cave in the mountains and, having taken several lessons in archeology, went on an excavation . According to legend, Sautuola’s attention was drawn to the drawings of red bulls that inhabited the vault of the cave by his six-year-old daughter Maria.

Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola. On the right is Maria de Sautuola at the age of eight.

After a short period of interest in the discovery of Sautuola and even support from archaeologists, a period of rejection and ridicule began, the end of which the Spanish lord did not wait for. He died in 1888, alone, accused of both forgery and madness, betrayed by those he trusted.

The point, apparently, is that Altamira’s drawings turned out to be a double-edged sword: on the one hand, Paleolithic finds increasingly undermined the position of the church, questioned the biblical views about the creation of the world and man, and in this confrontation between religion and science, any mistake of researchers, any the forgery would have been used by the clerics to great effect; on the other hand, the Altamira painting, the highest class of realistic monumental painting, in contrast to miniature crafts with rough, approximate images, did not fit into the doctrine of evolutionary teaching that dominated the scientific consciousness. It turned out that art developed according to some other laws than material culture, and already in such antiquity (15-11 thousand years ago, Magdalenian era) reached such mature forms. A heavy blow for the young doctrine (Darwin's "Origin of Species..." was published some twenty years ago). It so happened that the Altamiran bulls could not suit either side and were doomed to be officially ignored.

Signature the photograph of the museum exhibit reads: “The press does not believe in the authenticity of Altamira.”
She doesn’t believe it, she doesn’t believe it, but the entire front page is given to her (and photo source - quesabesde.com).

The date of official recognition by scientists of cave paintings and paintings of the Ice Age, including the painting of Altamira, is considered to be August 14, 1902, when participants in the congress of French anthropologists visited in turn the recently discovered caves with rock paintings in Combarel, Font-de-Gaume and La Mout . New discoveries completely confirmed that Sautuola was right; all that remained was to admit the obvious. The historical moment was captured in a group photo at the entrance to the La Mut cave:
Very interesting and intelligible about the details of the discovery of Altamira and in general about the problem of significant discoveries, for some reason rejected by the scientific world (one could call this, for example, Altamira syndrome; although, probably, they already called it something like that a long time ago, forgetting to ask us ), written in the article by B. Frolov “The Altamira Case” (magazine “Around the World”, 1972, No. 9).

Here are some more links on the topic:

And now - “Hummock, hummock!”, as Maria Sautuola shouted to dad when she saw amazing figures on the roof of the cave:

Bison

These beauties are most fully represented in Altamira. The following two images are the most famous and replicated:

The above bull, in an attacking pose, is most often given in textbooks, encyclopedias, and is invariably present on T-shirts, mugs, etc. But all these are drawings, and, of course, it is more interesting to look at the original source. So, in the bison depicted on the stamp, this one can be guessed:

The one on the T-shirt is more difficult. He is most similar:

"Economy, bold, confident strokes, combined with large spots of paint, convey the monolithic, powerful figure of the animal with a surprisingly accurate sense of its anatomy and proportions. The image is not only contour, but also three-dimensional: how tactile is the steep ridge of the bison and all the convexities of its massive body !The drawing is full of life, in it you can feel the trembling of tensing muscles, the elasticity of short strong legs, you can feel the readiness of the animal to rush forward, tilting its head, sticking out its horns and looking from under its brows with bloodshot eyes. The painter probably vividly recreated in his imagination the heavy running of a bison through the thicket, his furious roar and militant cries of the crowd of hunters pursuing him. No, this is not an elementary drawing. His “realistic” skill could be envied by a modern animal artist" (Dmitrieva N.A. A Brief History of Art. M.: "Iskusstvo", 1985) .

There are, of course, other images that are no less impressive:

Horse

Deer (deer)

Hogs

Due to the fact that due to the massive influx of tourists, the microclimate inside the cave changed and mold appeared on the drawings, Altamira was completely closed to the public in 1977. It reopened in 1982 and closed completely in 2002.

Nevertheless, admirers of the caveman’s talents were not left to the mercy of fate: there are copies of Altamira paintings constructed with the latest technology in the museum complex next to the cave itself, as well as in Madrid, Munich and Japan. Unfortunately, it is not possible to take a virtual tour on the Internet, as it was, for example, absolutely stunningly realized with the Lascaux cave, the second most famous after Altamira. But about that

The Altamira Cave (originally Cueva de Altamira) is one of the few oldest caves in which Stone Age rock art is perfectly preserved. The drawings are so realistic that at first they were even mistaken for a fake. In addition, they are polychrome, that is, colored. This adds to their uniqueness.

Where is

The Altamira Cave lies 2 kilometers southwest of the town of Santillana del Mar in northern Spain. The nearest major cities are Torrelavega (7 km) and Santander (28 km).
Geographic coordinates 43.377499, -4.122480

General information about the cave

The entrance to the cave is located in a small limestone hill at an altitude of 156 meters above sea level.
The temperature inside the cave is about 14 o C. Humidity is from 94 to 97%. Moreover, these indicators are practically unchanged throughout the year.

The cave consists of several passages and grottoes. The total length is 290 meters.
Currently, several zones of the cave are distinguished. The most significant ones have their own names.

Immediately at the entrance there is a “lobby”.

Next comes the most interesting “Great Hall of Polychromes”. Its length is 18 meters. The height of the vaults is from 2 to 6 meters. There are at least 16 clear images here. These are mainly bison. Animals are depicted in different positions. They stand, lie down or are in motion. This is the most impressive section of the cave. The ceiling, covering an area of ​​100 m2, is completely covered with colorful drawings of animals.

Image sizes range from 1.4 to 1.8 meters. In addition to bison, there are engravings of horses, deer and wild boar.
Scientists call the ceiling in the Great Hall “the Sistine Chapel of the Stone Age.”

An interesting fact is that archaeologists also attribute this majestic name to the famous primitive drawings in France.

“Great Hall of Incomprehensible Drawings” - in this part of the cave you can see abstract drawings. Their purpose is still unknown.

Next comes the Gallery, which contains designs known as “pastas.”

After the Gallery comes the Black Buffalo Room. A large black bison or bison is depicted here, as well as a horse and a bull.

"Sala de la Hoya" This is the last major room. It ends with a narrow gallery called. Here are drawings measuring 30-50 cm.

Who actually discovered the Altamira cave?

The entrance to the cave was found in 1868 by local hunter Modest Cubillas Peras. His dog got stuck in the rocks while chasing prey. The hunter had to rescue his four-legged friend. It was then that he noticed the entrance to the cave. But I didn’t attach much importance to this. The surrounding area has a karst topography, and there are a lot of caves here.

Modest mentioned his discovery to Count Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, who owned these lands.

Sautuola was an active fan of archeology, but he did not pay attention to the discovery of another cave. Only in 1876 did the count decide to look into the cave. True, he did not go far, and lost interest in her.

Having visited the archaeological exhibition of the World Exhibition in Paris in 1878, Marcelino remembered that he had an unexplored cave.

In 1879, taking his 9-year-old daughter Maria with him, the count went to the cave, hoping to find at least some ancient artifacts. On the walls he saw some marks and repeated black stripes. But his daughter, raising her head, discovered real paintings on the ceiling of the cave. The child’s words “Look, dad, oxen!” in fact, they became the discovery of a new historical site with rock art. Therefore, we believe that the cave, or rather the drawings in the Altamira cave, was discovered by Maria Sanz de Sautuola.

Replica of the ceiling of the Great Hall

Scientific controversy

Marcelino was very excited by the discovery. He invited archaeologist Juan Vilanova y Pierre. Together they explored and described the drawings of the cave. In 1880, a small brochure dedicated to the opening was published. All research results were presented in the joint work. They attributed the drawings to the late Paleolithic era.

However, the scientific community received this event coolly. Many scientists accused Sautuola of faking the images. The arguments boiled down to the fact that the painting was preserved in excellent condition. And the colored rock paintings were then perceived as fake.

Unfortunately, recognition and glory as a discoverer came to Sautuola only after his death. He died in 1888. A few years later, similar drawings were found in other caves. Thus, the scientific world admitted the mistake and confirmed the authenticity of the rock paintings in Altamira.

Emile Cartagliac (one of the ardent opponents of the authenticity of Altamira’s drawings), after studying the cave in 1902, wrote an article in the scientific journal L’Antropologie. It was called La grotte d'Altamira. Mea culpa d'un sceptique, literally "Cave of Altamira, My culpa of the skeptic." In it, he completely changed his opinion about the cave. This article became a de facto recognition of the authenticity of Altamira's paintings.

Since 1985, the cave has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Interesting fact - on April 1, 2016, the film “Altamira” was released with Antonio Banderas in the title role. The film tells about the history of the discovery of the cave and the problems of its acceptance by the scientific world.

Age of drawings

Most of the rock art belongs to the Madeleine and Solturean cultures. But there are some drawings that belong to the Gravettian and early Aurignacian cultures. According to scientists, the cave itself was used by humans for at least 22,000 years (that is, the period 35,600 - 13,000 years ago). This time dates back to the Late Paleolithic period.

About 13,000 years ago, a landslide sealed the entrance to the cave. This made it possible to preserve priceless paintings from antiquity.

How did primitive man draw?

The rock paintings of the Altamira cave are made with charcoal, yellow-red ocher, hematite and other natural paints.

The technique of drawing is interesting. Ancient artists painted not only with their fingers, but also with special devices. Most likely, these were primitive brushes, sticks or pieces of leather.

Protrusions and depressions on the ceiling and walls were skillfully used by artists to give natural volume to future drawings. This may be the first in human history.

The drawings in the cave are characterized by clear, well-thought-out lines. They are applied literally in one movement without leaving the surface. Most of the drawings are made with photographic precision.

Scientists are still arguing about the purpose of these drawings. The main versions come down to primitive religion. Perhaps, by creating such paintings, the ancient man performed a ritual of fertility or a successful hunt. It is possible that people simply painted ordinary scenes from their daily lives.

Altamira Cave in tourism

Initially, the original cave began to attract many visitors. And not only scientists, but also tourists. In the 1960s and 70s, up to 1,500 people visited the cave daily. In 1973, 174,000 people visited here.

Naturally, this affected the internal microclimate. Temperature and humidity began to change. As a result, mold appeared on the cave vaults.

In 1977 the cave was closed. It was opened only 5 years later, but the number of visits was significantly limited. Since 1982, no more than 20 people per day could visit this unique place.

There were many more people who wanted to visit the cave. Registration for a visit took several months. Despite the restrictions, the rock art began to deteriorate again.

Not all drawings are well preserved

In 2002, the cave was closed again for reconstruction.

Interesting fact - In 2015, the Spanish mint issued a 2 euro coin dedicated to the Altamira Cave. It depicts a bison.

Replica of Altamira Cave

To show everyone the paintings of the Stone Age, the National Museum and Research Center of Altamira was built next to the cave in 2001.

The main feature of the museum was an exact copy of the Great Hall of the cave. It reproduces drawings of the original cave. A separate exhibition presents copies of drawings from other parts of the cave. The replica of the cave painting was made by Pedro Saura and Matilda Muzviz from the University of Madrid. The artists used the same paints, materials and techniques characteristic of the original drawings.

The city of Santander also has a museum, the exhibition of which includes drawings of the Altamira cave. In addition, such copies are in museums in Germany and Japan.

How to get to Altamira Cave

Since 2015, only 5 people per week can enter the original cave. There are no queues or registration. On Fridays there is a regular lottery among all visitors to the Altamira Museum.

Winners receive a 37-minute tour on Fridays.

Detailed information about museum visiting times, costs and transport routes can be found on the official website of the attraction.

“The Sistine Chapel of primitive art” is called one of the most famous caves in the world - Altamira, located in northern Spain. From the day of its opening, passions raged around Altamira. It became a stumbling block for the scientific community and a test of conscience for its representatives. And for the discoverer, the sensational discovery turned into a tragedy.

Sisse Brimberg

The cave was discovered in 1868 completely by accident. A hunting dog chasing a fox suddenly disappeared. The hunter began to look for his pet and heard him whining... underground. Having rolled away the stone, the hunter fell into the cave through a crevice. The find was reported to the owner of the land, amateur archaeologist Marcelino de Sautuola.

In November 1879, after an archaeological exhibition in France, Sautuola decided to excavate Altamira. Deer antlers, fragments of pottery, flint hatchets and other tools - the archaeologist's perseverance was rewarded.

But a unique discovery belongs to the archaeologist’s nine-year-old daughter Maria: “Look, dad, there are bulls!” Sautuola could not believe his eyes - ancient bison, horses, and wild boars were “dancing” on the ceiling.

hominidas

The drawings were done masterfully - the rock relief was used to give the animals volume. The ancient artist first went through the chisel, and then painted the drawings with natural paints - the result was colored bas-reliefs. A shell was also found here, which served as a palette for the stone man. Amazingly, the primitive masters used techniques that were “discovered” only in the 19th century by the Impressionists. It was a sensation!

Word of the cave, which an amateur archaeologist had carefully dated to the Paleolithic era, quickly spread throughout Spain. A real pilgrimage of antiquities lovers began to Altamira. Even the Spanish king Alfonso XII visited the cave. But there was a hitch with the scientific recognition of the discovery.

The scientific world stubbornly did not “see” the cave. How could an ancient person have creative abilities and aesthetic taste?

Amateur archaeologist and professor at the University of Madrid, Don Juan Vilanova y Pierre, who supported Sautuol, was ridiculed in offices and at scientific conferences. Respectable men considered - at least, it was convenient for them - Altamira was a scientific scam.

richardnilsendot.com

“Cartalhac, my friend, be careful,” the “father” of modern primitive archeology, Gabriel de Mortillier, wrote to his student. - This is the focus of the Spanish Jesuits. They want to discredit the historians of primitiveness.” And Professor Cartillac, the head of the editorial office of the French journal Materials on the Natural History of Man, to which Sautuola sent his brochure about Altamira, decided not to risk it. The lone voices in support of Sautuola were drowned out by the chorus of those unwilling to reconsider the scientific paradigm.

One of the magazine's employees, Eduard Harle, deigned to visit the cave. His conclusions were simple. There is no natural lighting in Altamira, and artificial lighting has not yet been invented (so they believed, although later, in other caves of the Paleolithic period, stone lamps were found). The paintings are applied to stalactite incrustations, which means they are modern. And finally, ocher is a common material in Cantabria in the 19th century. Summary: the drawings are fakes, made very recently. We are dealing with falsification. At this point, the scientific world closed the Altamira cave for itself.

outdoors

Sautuola sent the materials to the Berlin Anthropological Society, but there was no response either. For twenty long years the cave drawings were not recognized as authentic. But one fine day Cartagliac, who was once afraid to admit the truth, repented. “In the days of our youth, we thought we knew everything,” the head of “Materials” admitted, “I will publish repentance in the next issue of the magazine.”

But Sautuola did not live to see this happy moment - he died untimely back in 1888. The hunted Vilanova, forced to abandon his views, followed his like-minded person five years later.

After recognition of the cave, excavations were resumed. The excitement around her continued. In the middle of the 20th century, Altamira was visited by a huge number of people - up to one and a half thousand a day. Due to the dampness, mold appeared in the cave. The cave was forced to be closed for restoration.

maroon_501

These days, Altamira is again open to the public, but you need to sign up for a tour several years in advance. Only a few people are allowed into the cave per day, with special permits. At the Santander Museum you can admire copies of the drawings. The photographs are also in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain in Madrid, the German Museum in Munich, and also in Japan.

“After Altamira, everything is in decline! - Pablo Picasso exclaimed, having once visited a cave. “No contemporary artist could paint something like this.” And the beautiful frescoes of ancient man continue to amaze our contemporaries.

The history of the discovery of the Altamira cave is very interesting and instructive. This is one of the most famous Paleolithic caves in Spain. The cave is located in the province of Cantabria near the city of Santander. Count Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, the owner of the land on which the cave is located, discovered images on its walls and ceiling. More precisely, his nine-year-old daughter Maria was the first to see these images.

In 1879, while walking through the cave, Maria drew her father’s attention to strange images on the ceiling of one of its “halls,” difficult to discern in the darkness of the cave. “Look, dad, bulls,” she said.

Even earlier, at the World Exhibition in Paris, Sautuola became acquainted with the exhibition of ancient objects, which we now call Paleolithic small sculptures. The images of bison they saw in Altamira were very similar to the Paleolithic bison on display.

Sautuola suggested that Altamira's painting belongs to the Stone Age.

The first reports about this unique monument aroused general interest.

But soon all major archaeological experts categorically rejected Sautuola’s arguments in favor of the Paleolithic age of painting. Sautuola was accused of deliberate falsification, claiming that these paintings were made by a contemporary artist. Scientists could not believe that people whom they considered primitive could create works of such high skill.

Only almost 15 years after Sautuola’s death it was officially recognized that Altamira’s paintings dated back to the Paleolithic era.

The cave is about 300 meters long. It consists of numerous corridors and halls. Along the entire length of the cave, the walls are decorated with countless drawings.

The drawings were made about 15 thousand years ago using charcoal and ocher, which was sometimes replaced with red iron ore. To create images, ancient artists scratched it on the wall and then painted it. Moreover, the paints were diluted in different proportions and this made it possible to have colors of varying saturation.

The uneven surface of the cave, which the artists skillfully exploited, made it possible to create three-dimensional images.

Of the Altamira paintings, the most famous is the painting of the low ceiling in one of the “halls” of the cave to the left of the entrance.

Of the more than 20 animal figures painted here (mostly bison), most are painted on the natural convexities of the ceiling. The result is an impressive picture of semi-volume, relief figures.

The perfection and beauty of the images are amazing.

Recent results of radiocarbon dating of individual images of this ceiling showed that between 200 and 500 years passed between them.

13 thousand years ago, Altamira was covered with stones as a result of a collapse, as a result of which it was hidden from human eyes for many centuries.

After the antiquity of the paintings in the cave was recognized, it was open to the public, but the number of people wishing to visit Altamira turned out to be so great that the paintings began to deteriorate from the breath of spectators.

Currently, access to the cave is limited. Only a few people per day, by appointment, have the opportunity to view this Stone Age gallery. A special permit is required to visit Altamira, and yet the waiting list stretches for three years.