In the afternoon, the three of us met for lunch and then drove to the local Prehistory Museum to take a tour of a nearby cave.
The Cave of Ardales is protected and only 1,000 visitors are allowed to enter each year so there were only 10 of us in the group. We formed a small caravan and drove out into the country, past beautiful blooming almond trees to the cave entrance.
After an earthquake in 1821 caused a crack in the earth on the hillside, humans entered the cave for the first time in more 8,000 years. Apparently the cave had been occupied continually for tens of thousands of years prior to that. At times, it was a living space and at other times it may have been a sacred space. Roughly a thousand drawings still decorate the walls; petroglyphs (carvings) and pictographs (paintings). They are mostly animals but there are some random colorings and several stylized depictions of women (none of men). Debate continues as to the age of the oldest markings and whether or not they were done by Neanderthals. Recent studies indicate that the oldest paintings may be 65,000 years old!
We were not permitted to take any photos in the cave but I located a video in which the director of the cave wanders around, describing some of the artworks. It’s in Spanish but the images are exactly what we experienced. There are no electric lights. We were each handed a little flashlight to find our footing. Everyone but our guide had to turn off our flashlights when we looked at a drawing. Here’s the link to "The Time Machine":
I have never seen Paleolithic cave art before and the intimacy of our group made the space even more magical; like an ancient cathedral.
When Ben, Judy and I finally emerged into the light, we were breathless from the wonder of it all. It seemed to me that the current problems facing our world were a little bit less significant having just witnessed artwork produced over much of the history of our species.
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