The regal black bull painted by a Stone Age artist on a cave wall in southwestern France 17,000 years ago has survived millennia of war and pestilence just a few yards above its subterranean gallery.
Today the prehistoric bovine could face annihilation by encroaching black mold spots, the latest in a series of threats unwittingly brought in over the years by tourists, scientists and bureaucrats.
“Each time we try to resolve one problem, we create another,” said Marie-Anne Sire, the cave administrator who coordinates the scientific teams trying to save the endangered reindeer, potbellied ponies and woolly rhinos of the Lascaux cave, which has one of the world’s most famous collections of prehistoric art.
Lascaux is the focus of a growing, internet-driven global debate: Should heritage sites become laboratories reserved for study exclusively by scientists?
Or are they such an important part of the patrimony of humanity that they should be open to the public, despite the risks of damage?
Rediscovered in 1940, the caves of Lascaux, like many historic sites, quickly became a victim of their fame.
The caves were besieged by hordes of tourists — whose breath raised levels of damaging carbon dioxide — and by killer fungus, microbes and black spots.
Conditions became so perilous that French authorities closed the cave to most tourists 25 years ago. Nearby, a precise replica of the two most famous rooms in the cave was created to accommodate the tourist crowds.
Now, in yet another troubling twist, the reproductions are becoming so faded that scientists are debating a major restoration project for the fake cave.
The bigger concern, of course, is the real cave. In January, authorities closed the cave for three months even to scientists and preservationists.
Now only a few scientific experts are allowed to work inside the cave and just for a few days a month. French officials say it could remain closed to the wider scientific community for two or three more years.
Sire, 48, is a restoration expert whose previous speciality was restoring medieval paintings on the exteriors of churches. As cave administrator, she coordinates the work of a 25-member team of biologists, conservationists, restorers, archaeologists and other specialists.
Sire described the team’s efforts to save Lascaux as a scientific nightmare. Over the decades, almost every attempt to eradicate problems has spawned new dangers.
A formaldehyde foot wash, for instance, used for years to disinfect people entering the cave, ended up killing friendly organisms that might have prevented fungus from growing.
Sire took over as cave administrator in 2002 during a white fungus outbreak that followed installation of an air-conditioning system designed to keep harmful microorganisms from taking root.
“I was shocked,” she recalled. “It looked as though it had snowed.”
Fearful that the fungus would gobble the paintings, experts poured quicklime powder on the floors and wrapped the walls in cotton bandages soaked in fungicide and antibiotics.
As soon as the white fungus began to disappear, scientists launched a project to record the condition of every animal in the cave in a computer simulation.
And then the black spots started appearing, heading rapidly towards black bulls and other beasts.
A small team of workers clad in protective suits sprayed ammonia-based solutions on the spots, and the cave was sealed in January.
When scientists re-entered the cave in April, Sire said, “I was holding my breath”.
Though the black spots had stopped spreading in nine of the 11 treated zones, they remain a serious danger to engravings in the smaller sections of the cave that are the most susceptible to temperature and humidity changes.
Sire said the scientific team is divided over how to proceed. “Microbiologists and geologists say we have to observe and understand what is happening first, that we can’t disturb the cave. They don’t agree with the treatment,” Sire said.
“Other groups say the risk is too big to watch and take no action.”
The International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux has criticised what it considers years of inept response and secrecy surrounding the work.
Sire is one of the French officials listed on the group’s website, www.savelascaux.org, under the scathing headline “Who is Responsible for the Debacle inside Lascaux?”
Sire said she understands the anger.
“Because the cave is not open, the world is afraid for Lascaux,” she said, adding that “we have nothing to hide”.
She conceded her own frustrations: “It’s a big problem — what to do, how to choose. Lascaux is in the hands of doctors who don’t have the same diagnoses.
“We have to choose between reacting or not acting,” she continued. “Acting is dangerous; not acting is dangerous, too.”
