NIAUX CAVERN - AN EARLY VISITOR'S GRAFFITI:

Bison, Niaux, Black Salon,

Wikipedia. Public domain.

The urge to leave graffiti on a rock art site is not just a modern phenomenon. According to the book The Cave and the Cathedral by Amir Aczel, a visitor to Niaux cavern in 1660 left his name on the wall in the Black Salon where he saw the rock art left by Paleolithic artists. I found the account really provoked my imagination as I pictured this gentleman making his way through the cave in the 1600s. Ruben de la Vialle had to have used a flame to light his way, much like the original creators of the art, not the electric lamps used by modern visitors. Aczel described it in his book The Cave and the Cathedral (see below).

Ruben de la Vialle,1660 signature, leavesandleaf.blogspot.com.

Public domain.

"In 1660, a visitor named Ruben de la Vialle carved his name and the date all the way inside the Black Salon, half a mile deep inside this cavern (Niaux), right next to the drawings of the animals. Did de la Vialle realize how ancient the drawings were? We do not know, and there is no evidence that anyone else had penetrated the cave to this depth. De la Vialle must have lighted his way in with fire, using a candle or a torch not much different from the kind Paleolithic artists who decorated this cave had used.

Navigating this complicated underground network of cavities - which continues for six more miles underground in a part of the cave very rarely visited today, called the Castres Network - must have been a daunting task. And it was dangerous. We know that people have died when they got lost inside some of these deep caverns.

But somehow, Ruben de la Vialle made it alone all the way in. He saw this great art, and he made it back out of the cave. His footsteps have been found in the cave, showing his way in and out. There are also footsteps of the Paleolithic people who made the art and those of ancient visitors who entered the cave still in the Ice Age, a couple of thousand years after the artists had left. These Ice Age visitors were two women and two young children, as revealed by an analysis of their footsteps. They, too, made it all the way to the Black Salon. We know this because the cave environment was undisturbed by wind or fire or much geological erosion, and therefore ancient footsteps inside remained intact for millennia.

Once de la Vialle had left the cave of Niaux in 1660, the beautiful drawings of the Black Salon were not to be seen again for almost 250 years. The artists clearly aimed - and succeeded - at hiding their drawings well.

On September 21, 1906, the Paleolithic treasure hidden in the depth of Niaux was rediscovered. That day, two young brothers, Paul and Jules Molard, were hiking in the woods with their father, known only as Captain Molard, in the rural region of the lower central Pyrenees." (Aczel 2009:10-11)

Ibex, Niaux cave, Black Salon, Public

domain, www.visual-arts-cork.com.

Niaux, Black Salon,

donsmaps.com, 

Public domain.

Unfortunately, we have no record of what de la Vialle thought of the masterpieces of Paleolithic art that he found there. One can only imagine his thoughts on the subject, but it is something to contemplate.

Note: Images in this posting were retrieved from the Internet by a search that included the phrase "Public domain." If any of these images were located mistakenly please accept my apology, and inform me so I can give proper credit.

REFERENCE:

Aczel, Amir D.

2009 The Cave and the Cathedral: How a Real-Life Indiana Jones and a Renegade Scholar Decoded the Ancient Art of Man, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hoboken, NJ.

http://donsmaps.com/niauxart.html

http://leavesandleaf.blogspot.com

Wikipedia.

www.visual-arts-cork.com.

ROCK ART AND SOUND EFFECTS:

Black Salon, Grotte de Niaux, Ariege, France. From: Rault, p. 18.

One small but interesting subset in the study of rock art concerns the acoustics of rock art sites. According to some researchers it is possible to find interesting acoustics at many rock art sites. In locales where the rock art is on cliffs they believe that the form of the cliffs often provides for a stronger echo than other nearby sections of cliff. Measurements of the strength of echoes from various surfaces in painted European caves suggest that this can indeed be the case. In 2000 Lucy Rault wrote in Musical Instruments: Craftsmanship and Tradition from Prehistory to the Present, that “comparable investigations at Niaux have similarly demonstrated that in this cave places with particularly strong echoes also have images associated with them, some if these, significantly, mark places where sounds linger for several seconds. We can therefore conclude that the choice of locations for wall figures seems to have been made largely on the basis of their acoustical value. Sometimes whole walls remain empty where the corresponding space, however vast it may be, produces no echo. On the other hand, places favorable for echoes are marked and painted, even if their location made such decoration difficult to accomplish.” (Rault 2000:22).

Bison, Grotte du Portel, Ariege,France. From: Rault, p.23.

Given the strong echoes and reverberation found in these sites in the painted caves of Europe, we have to ask ourselves what were they echoing? The most obvious guess would be the sound of the animal depicted on the wall. The call of this creature might be imitated by spiritual leaders or vocally talented members of the clan. Another possibility could be the eerie moaning sound of a bullroarer. Regarding this, John Pfeiffer wrote in 1982 (p. 180) that “oval bone and ivory objects with abstract designs carved on them and a hole at one end make a high whining hum when whirled from a string, suggesting that the sound of a bullroarer moved people in the upper Paleolithic as well as in modern times” (Pfeiffer’s “high whining hum” would have come from a smaller bullroarer on a short string, a larger model on a longer string could give a much lower roaring sound). Especially in the case of a painted bison or other animal whose vocalizations are grunting, roaring, or rumbling sounds, hearing the sound of a bullroarer echoing and reverberating through the chamber would have been startling to say the least.

Halo Shelter, Val Verde County, TX., Photo: Peter Faris, 2004.

Another effect that can often be found in caves and rock shelters is the phenomenon of the whisper channel. When the walls are of the correct shape they will often pass the frequencies of a soft voice smoothly to the other end of the chamber in such a way that they are inaudible to people standing in between. I observed this effect in a rock shelter at Val Verde county in west Texas, where I could hear a soft conversation of people standing about 20 feet away at the other end of the shelter but individuals standing between us could not discern their comments.

A number of years ago, during a visit to the Grand Gallery of Horseshoe Canyon, in Canyonlands, Utah, one visitor had lugged a tape recorder and microphone all the way from the canyon rim to the panel and had set up his sound equipment while he walked back and forth along the rock art panels tapping the surface of the rock with a little hammer made of deer or elk antler. I thought at the time that this was a pretty silly practice, but I now see that it actually may have had some validity. Although I could not really see back then what the value would be in having that sort of information available, it is now obvious that it might add to the overall metadata of cultural knowledge of the people involved, and would allow evaluations based upon a broader knowledge of their cultural concerns, and this would benefit everyone interested in the prehistory of humanity.

REFERENCES:

Pfeiffer, John E.
1982, The Creative Exlosion: An Inquiry into the Origins of Art and Religion, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York.

Rault, Lucy
2000, Musical Instruments: Traditions and Craftsmanship from Prehistory to the Present, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.