Word: montignac
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Donkey Bones. More exciting to French diggers is the art-crammed neolithic cave at Montignac-sur-Vézère. Named after some donkey bones found near the surface, the cave was first explored in 1940 by schoolboys. A few pictures of it leaked out through Vichy (TIME, July 28, 1941), but detailed study had to wait until after the war. Last week scientific investigation was going full speed ahead...
Archeologists believe that the Montignac cave's deep, twisting chambers were occupied between 10,000 and 30,000 years ago by successive races of cave-dwelling men who covered its walls with many layers of spirited, colorful drawings. It will take years of hard work to trace the half-erased lines and chart the cave's long history...
...earliest cave pictures were not painted but scratched on walls with sharpened flints. Profiles were absolute with but single fore and hind legs, and lacking were such details as hooves, eyes, hair and nostrils. But as Aurignacian scratching developed into painting, remarkable sophistication of draftsmanship appeared. In the Montignac group, stiffness of profile has relaxed and action abounds - the beasts run, leap, browse, swim, lie down, chew their cuds. The head of an ancient long-horned cow (see cut) displays an excellent eye and nostril, subtle shading and dappling. To the Paleolithic artist, the more realistic was his picture...
...Montignac cave, many tortured galleries still remain unexplored, many scratched figures still undeciphered. "There may yet be many surprises in store," observes Breuil, who knows that cave paintings are sometimes hidden a half-mile from the entrances. There may also be many undiscovered Paleolithic caves on both slopes of the Pyrenees. Today archeologists are more eager than ever to continue their explorations, but they fear that for years to come the prizes will fall only to French schoolboys...
...This phrase is an echo from the great cave at Altamira, Spain, where the Marquis of Sautuola first found and recognized prehistoric paintings in 1879. Altamira is commonly called "the Sistine Chapel of Magdelanian art," representing a Paleolithic culture about 10,000 years later than Montignac...