Archeologists have to dive to the bottom of the Mediterranean off southern France to reach the place where cave paintings of prehistoric marine life have been found.
They have to negotiate a 137-meter natural tunnel into the rock, passing through the mouth of the cave, until they emerge into a huge cavern.
Three men died trying to discover the submerged Lascaux, as rumors spread of a cave in southwestern France that changed the way we see our Stone Age ancestors.
Picasso's visit to Lascaux in 1940proved the need to make art.
Luc Vanrell changed his life when he saw the amazing images of the Cosquer cavern. He remembers theaesthetic shock from 30 years ago.
The cave and its treasures are in danger. Climate change, water and plastic pollution are threatening to wash away the art of prehistoric men and women.
Vanrell and his colleagues have been in a race against time to record everything they can since a sudden rise in the sea level there in 2011.
The ancient paintings and carvings are eaten away by the high water mark every year.
There are prehistoric wonders.
Vanrell and his team are having to work faster and harder to find the neolithic wonders of the last corners of the 2,500 square meter grotto before they are lost.
A recreation of the Cosquer cavern will open this week a few kilometers away in Marseille.
The dive team raced to finish the digital mapping for a 3D reconstruction of the cave as they joined the Agence France-Presse.
Some of the aquatic life never before seen in cave paintings have been found on the walls of the immense cave 37 meters below the azure waters of the breathtaking Calanques inlets east of Marseille.
The diver who is in charge of the operation to digitalise the cave said that they fantasized about bringing the cave to the surface.
The virtual Cosquer cavern will be indispensable for researchers and archaeologists who will not be able to physically get inside.
Children's hands.
The cave was 10 kilometers from the coast when it was used, according to Olive.
Olive, who is in charge of studying the cave, draws with his finger a vast grassland plain where the Mediterranean now is. He said that it was an excellent place for prehistoric man.
Horses, deer, bison, ibex, prehistoric auroch cows, saiga antelopes, seals, penguins, fish, and a cat and a bear can be seen on the walls of the cave.
There are 229 figures on the walls.
The neolithic men and women left a mark on the walls, with 69 hand prints and three left by mistake.
There are hundreds of geometric signs and depictions of male and female body parts.
Vanrell said that the cave was occupied from 33,000 to 18,500 years ago.
The sheer density of its graphics puts Cosquer among the four biggest cave art sites in the world, alongside Lascaux, Altamira in Spain and Chauvet, which is also in southern France.
The cave walls that are today underwater were once decorated and are the largest in Europe.
The 62-year-old insisted that Exploring Cosquer is also an addiction, with a twinkle in his eye. He smiled and said they miss their favorite bison.
Diving down is like a journey into yourself for Vanrell. The spirit of the place comes into you.
Death and discovery.
Henri Cosquer, a professional deep sea diver, said he found the cave by chance in 1985.
One day he came out through a hole in the cliff that was cut out by the sea.
I came up in a dark cave. You come out of the mud and slide around. He told Agence France-Presse that it took him a few trips to go around it.
The diver said that he saw nothing with his lamp and then found a hand print.
Cosquer kept the news to himself and a few friends, even though the law requires that they be declared immediately.
Nobody owned the cave. He said that when you find a good spot for mushrooms, you don't tell everyone.
Three people died in the tunnel leading to the cave after rumors of the aquatic Lascaux drew other divers. Cosquer owned up to his discovery in 1991. The cave that bears his name is no longer open. Only scientific teams are allowed inside.
Dozens of archeological research missions have been carried out since to study and preserve the site. When Chauvet was discovered in the Ardeche region in 1994, resources began to drain away.
Climate change can cause damage.
The alarm was raised by Olive and Vanrell after the rapid rise in the sea level caused damage to some images.
It was a catastrophe, and it really shook us psychologically, Vanrell said.
The data shows that the sea level is rising faster and faster, according to a specialist in prehistoric caves painted at France's historic monuments research laboratory.
She said that the sea rises and falls in the cavity with variations in climate, washing the walls and damaging materials that are rich in information.
The pollution is making the damage worse.
In the face of such a threat, the French government has launched a major push to record everything about the cavern, with an archaeologist tasked with trying to better understand the prehistoric communities who used it.
There are mysteries.
The trace of cloth on the wall of the cave is a mystery that he and his team will try to solve.
The images of the horses with long manes raise a question. Vanrell thinks that they may have already been domesticated since wild horses have shorter manes. A drawing of a harness may back up his theory.
The remains of coal can be seen under a layer of translucent calcite, which could have been used for painting or heating. They may have burned the coal on top of stalagmites, turning them into lamps to light the cavern.
Olive admitted that the central question of what the cave was used for remains unclear.
Olive said some people think it was a sanctuary, a meeting place, or a place where they mined moonmilk, the white substance on limestone cave walls that was used for body paint and for the background for paintings and carving.
There is a replica.
Soon after the cave was discovered, the idea of making a replica of the site was considered. The museum of European and Mediterranean civilisations at the mouth of the city's Old Port was renovated in 2016 and will be the new home of the regional government.
The replica of the Chauve is slightly smaller than the original cave, but it still includes copies of all the paintings and most of the carvings.
The artist has been copying the paintings using the same tools and charcoal that his predecessors used.
He said that the prehistoric artists wrote the score long ago and now he is playing it in his studio.
He hailed the great mastery andpontaneity of his prehistoric predecessors, whose confident brush strokes clearly came from their great knowledge and experience. He said that liberty of gesture and sureness never ceases to impress him.
There will be a new year in 2022.
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