Snapshot: Go back in prehistoric time at the Lascaux Caves

Hunting scenes splashed across the wall, richly colored and detailed drawings of human-like figures stabbing spears into life-like animals, telling stories of life in primitive times.

This is no movie set, but prehistoric masterpieces of art in the Lascaux Caves of the Vézère valley near Montignac in Southwestern France. A labyrinth of caves, its Paleolithic cave paintings was estimated to be over 17,000 years old.

Four teenagers made an accidental discovery of the cave back in 1940, when they followed their dog into the narrow cavern entrance. The subterranean grotto has a main cavern with walls covered in paintings of animals, symbols and engravings. There are over 2,000 figures that can be divided into three main categories- humans, animals and abstract signs. Each painting is remarkable in details. There are horses, stags, bison, deers, bovines and even mythical creatures. The images are painted using mineral pigments; some are incised into the stone. Archaeologists believed that the cave was most likely used as a gathering place for hunting and religious rites over a long period of time.

First opened to the public in 1948, it was closed in 1963 because artificial lights faded the vibrant colors of the cave paintings and let to algae growth. The paintings were restored to their original state and monitored on a daily basis.

A replica of the cave, Lascaux II, opened in 1983, stands just 200 meters from the original, with reproductions of Lascaux artwork. Essentially, everything here is a fake, but they are pretty good fakes. Local artist Monique Peytral, along with 20 painters and sculptors worked for 11 years to reproduce everything to scale and quality, right down to the color pigments and engraving styles.

There are altogether 2200 images here, with over 900 are animals, mainly deer, bulls and cattle. There are also cats, a bear, a rhino and bird. Don’t miss the four large black bulls in the Hall of Bulls chamber, they are the most impressive- the largest painting of the bull stretches beyond 5 meters and is the largest animal painting in prehistoric cave paintings.

The tour through the cave takes about 40 minutes, and it can get pretty cold as you get deeper in. Prepare a jacket.

Tip: You can buy tickets at the Tourist Office in the Montignac town, highly recommended during the peak season summer, and get them in advance. It may be hard to get same-day tickets because visitors are capped at 2,000 per day.

Ticket Prices:
Adults 9.50€ and children 6€