Then they have to negotiate a 137-metre natural tunnel into the rock, passing through the mouth of the cave until they emerge into a huge cavern, much of it now submerged.
Every year the high water mark rises a few more millimetres, eating away a little more of the ancient paintings and carvings. Around 600 signs, images and carvings - some of aquatic life never before seen in cave paintings - have been found on the walls of the immense cave 37 metres below the azure waters of the breathtaking Calanques inlets east of Marseille.
"The entrance to the cave was on a little promontory facing south over grassland protected by cliffs. It was an extremely good place for prehistoric man," he said.The walls of the cave show the coastal plain was teeming with wildlife - horses, deer, bison, ibex, prehistoric auroch cows, saiga antelopes but also seals, penguins, fish and a cat and a bear.
"And because the cave walls that are today underwater were probably also once decorated, nothing else in Europe compares to its size," he added."Some people who have been working on the site get depressed if they haven't been down in a while. They miss their favourite bison," he smiled.Henri Cosquer, a professional deep sea diver running a diving school, said he found the cave by chance in 1985, just 15 metres off the bare limestone cliffs.
But rumours of this aquatic Lascaux drew other divers and three died in the tunnel leading to the cave.
More tax...Tell sleepy Ryan!
Nothing to do with time. Over time everything falls apart
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