Altamira Cave

The Altamira cave had been sealed by rocks for goodness knows how long, thousands of years anyway. However, sometime in the mid-nineteenth century a falling tree dislodged the rocks and the cave became accessible. At first local inhabitants of the Cantabria region in Spain where the cave is located just used it for shelter in bad weather without noticing the artworks. Finally, in 1879 an amateur archaeologist, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola and his daughter Maria saw the images of animals on the ceiling of the cave. Sautuola had seen similar images on Stone Age objects before and realized that the pretty animals his daughter had found might be of an similar age.

Sautuola returned to study the cave with University of Madrid archaeologist Juan Vilanova y Piera, and were greatly excited by their findings. However, their 1880 publication was met with scorn and ridicule by specialists in the field. The incredible artistic quality of the paintings coupled with their almost perfect state led to accusations of forgery. Sadly, Sautuola died before the academic world recognized the veracity of his claims, including an admission of misjudgment by the most vocal critic in 1902. Today, though, no-one doubts that the paintings in the Altamira cave were created by people of the paleolithic age, around 15,000 to 18,000 years ago, as Sautuola believed.

Today, to protect the paintings, the caves are closed to all except a few experts. Replicas have been built together with a museum near the site, though, allowing the public the experience of viewing these images as their creators saw them.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

The artworks at Altamira are outstanding in many ways. They are incredibly beautiful, even by contemporary standards. They are polychromatic, with wonderful use of colors derived from natural dyes available to the artists. These artists exploited the natural contours of the cave walls to give a three-dimensional effect to their images which gives an immediate impact to the viewer. Interestingly, the caves were used for habitation and there is much archaeological evidence of human occupation in the front section of the caves, and the artworks extend into this occupied area.

The Altamira cave paintings include a whole herd of bison as well as a few images of other animals including horses, a deer, and goats, as well as a number of human handprints. The latter were created by the artists placing their hands on the wall of the cave and covering them with paint which left negative images of their palms.

Image of Bison in the cave of Altamira from Wikimedia Commons.

Although the Altamira cave features images of other animals, it is the large herd of bison thundering across the ceiling that captures our imagination the most. Here are some examples.

Bisons, from the Caves at Altamira,
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Bison from the Caves at Altamira
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Bison, from the Caves at Altamira, circa 15000 BC
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Bison from the Altamira Caves
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Copyright © Jennifer P. Tanabe, 2009.
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