A few dark red grains are projected on a black paint affixed to a rock face. It is still difficult to decelerate what form it is. And no question of questioning the authors of these drawings… their works date back more than 20,000 years! On the other hand, the very living artists who endeavor to reproduce them are inexhaustible on the subject.

For almost two years now, these prehistorians and visual artists have been giving life to a jewel of prehistoric art: the Cosquer cave, whose entrance is located 37 meters below sea level in a cove in Marseille. Installed at L’Union, near Toulouse in Haute-Garonne, in the workshops of the company Déco-Diffusion directed by Marie-Paule Klein, they produced a facsimile of this place inaccessible to the public which will be installed in the second basement. of the Villa Méditerranée, in Marseille.

This vast project of more than 20 million euros (13 M € for the Sud-Paca region) was entrusted to the Kleber-Rossillon company in the hope of getting out of this Marseille cultural establishment in a financial impasse.

500 works of cave art

To recreate the famous cave, several panels have been produced over the months on structures made in Montignac, in the Dordogne. Work to reconstruct the rock face was then carried out at L’Union. Then were reproduced various paintings and engravings, of animals in particular, telling the passage of these “Marseillais” having between 19,000 and 33,000 years before us.

About 500 works of cave art have been identified and reproduced. The entire site was placed under the direction of Bernard Toffoletti who had already supervised the reproduction of the Chauvet cave in Ardèche.

The new creation is coming to an end at this time. The last elements are getting ready from the Phocaean city. It is with a touch of sadness, barely concealed, that Gilles Tosello, one of the pillars of the team, focuses on the last panels with the precision and rigor that characterizes him: “It’s a joy to arrive. at the end of this fascinating and unique work… and a little depressing to know that it is coming to an end. We will never tire of bringing such treasures back to life! “, Confides the plastic surgeon who recognizes that” this operation was more complicated than the facsimile of Chauvet “.

“We only work on photographs”

“For the Cosquer cave, we only work on photographs because we did not have access to the cave which is done only after a dive to nearly forty meters and whose visit is reserved for a privileged few”.

And this last stage of the reconstruction gives him a hard time: “Several drawings appear under others dating from an earlier period. Some have been deliberately erased, hence these large engraved lines which let some mysteries hover. But our knowledge and our research show that these are indeed hands on which we have projected a new pigmentation with the mouth, ”explains Gilles Tosello, impatient, despite everything, to see the final result in Marseille.

The public will have to wait until next year. 500,000 visitors are expected this same year.