The replica of the Cosquer cave in Marseille takes shape at the Villa Méditerranée
Discovered in 1985, this underwater cave in the Calanques between Marseille and Cassis will have its replica like Chauvet or Lascaux. In June 2022, visitors will be able to discover within the Villa Méditerranée in Marseille, at the foot of the Major and next to the Mucem. Part of the installation was unveiled to the press this week.
This Tuesday, February 15, 20 million stories were revealed to the press: the resin panel which reproduces “The horses”, the emblematic work of the Cosquer cave.
And it is also a particularity of this cave, our ancestors drew more than 14 different species when in traditional caves, we only find one or two species.
There are of course horses but also ibex, bison and even more surprisingly seals and penguins.
After 14 months of work by visual artists, the 12 panels reproducing the cavity will be visible to as many people as possible at the Villa Méditerranée.
It took 14 months of work for the seven visual artists from Montignac, in the Dordogne, to reproduce the paintings identically. They worked on 12 resin parishes projected from the 3D modeling of the cave.
In all, 150m2 of the cave have been copied, paintings but also geological reliefs.
These visual artists have already made the facsimile of the Chauvet cave, in Ardèche. Cosquer’s replica has the complexity of being inaccessible to visual artists.
A frustration despite the precision of the 3D image, some details remain in the shadows. “It’s a huge handicap not to go into the cave”Alain Dalis, visual artist at Atelier Arc & Os.
For the Chauvet cave, they could go down every 15 days or every month. They have at their disposal in addition to photos, elements that allow them to refine things.
The visit to the cave will be done from wagons, “there will be pools around the visitors to give this impression of immersion in the cave, and the visit will be accessible by audioguides, which will reveal all the mysteries of the Cosquer cave“, indicates Sylvain Depitout, the commercial director.
The Cosquer cave is an archaeological site of inestimable value, destined to disappear. The Cosquer cave, located in the Calanque de la Triperie, between Cassis and Marseille will have a second life with this replica.
If our ancestors were able to perform ceremonies in this cave, today, it is impossible to access it without being an experienced diver.
In addition, global warming accelerating the rise of water, condemns the cave to total immersion.
The cave also has conservation problems: the paintings inevitably deteriorate.
Testimony of a life, and of an extraordinary parietal art, the Cosquer cave, located 37 meters deep, below sea level, was discovered by the diver and diver Henri Cosquer.
A lover of challenges, he visited it several times alone between 1985 and 1991. To get there, he had to cross a submerged tunnel 175 meters long.
Since 1991, when Henri Cosquer declared his discovery (after the death of three divers in the access tunnel), only scientific missions have been able to access it.
Carbon 14 studies have made it possible to reveal two periods of occupation: the animal paintings date from – 19,000 BC. The red and black hands were made around – 27,000 years ago.
In total, 270 works of parietal art have been unearthed: representations of marine animals such as seals, jellyfish and penguins, whose presence in the Mediterranean dates from the last ice age, but also many horses , bison and aurochs.
65 reproductions of hands in negative were made using the stencil technique.
Cosquer Cave is the only listed underwater cave in the world. Today it is monitored and closed to the public because of the degradations it is experiencing.