The Altamira Cave museum near Santillana del Mar is just like the original – with its ceiling covered with black and red drawings of animals.

SPAIN - The Altamira Cave, near Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, has been described as "The Sistine Chapel of the Quaternary."

Its ceiling is covered with black and red drawings of bison, boar, horses, red deer, anthropomorphosis figures and handprints of such astonishing quality that when it was discovered in 1879, many archaeologists thought it had to be a clever forgery.

Twenty years would go by before the scientific community accepted that Altamira was indeed real, but by then its discoverer, the amateur archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, was dead, never to receive his due acknowledgement.

Prime conditions threatened
During the 20th century the cave became a major tourist attraction, with as many as 175,000 visitors in one year.

Such massive human presence in a space no more than 150 square meters in size began to threaten paintings that had survived in excellent conditions for some 15,000 years, thanks to the fact that the mouth of the cave was sealed off by falling rocks around 13,000 years ago.

In 1977, authorities closed the cave off to the public, and for the next five years scientists strove to repair the damage done by the change in the cave's temperature and dampness.

Access became restricted to researchers, and the cave slowly returned to its original condition. In 1985, Unesco declared it a World Heritage Site in recognition of its incalculable worth, on a par with other Neolithic caves such as Lascaux in France.

A safe solution
In order to let the public admire the cave paintings, a replica of the original was built nearby. The conditions of the real Altamira were faithfully reproduced, using crushed limestone and resin and by painting to scale by hand, with the same materials and techniques employed by the original artists.

Angles in the walls and ceiling were carefully replicated to ensure the paintings would look exactly the same. The only difference is that the ceiling was raised from the original, making the visit easier on the neck.

Next to the replica there is also a museum housing more than 400 prehistoric objects and offering a superbly informative view of life in the Palaeolithic age through video screenings, recreations of daily events and hands-on exhibits.

But now, debate is raging again over the possibility of reopening the original cave to the public.

In November 2007, museum and government authorities announced that a team from the Superior Council of Scientific Research (CSIC) was analysing the conditions at Altamira to see whether it could be done. Their verdict will not be given until 2009, but the Culture Ministry would like to see the cave reopen - under strict conditions.

text by El Pais / Expatica
photos by google