The Hindu : International : Project to save U.K. cave art

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 11, 2005

International

International

Project to save U.K. cave art

London: Millions of pounds of heritage lottery money has been given to safeguard the U.K.'s finest example of ice age cave art. Creswell Crags in Nottinghamshire is a limestone gorge believed to mark the most northern explorations of ice age man. It houses Britain's earliest cave art, discovered two years ago, and is said to have the world's most elaborately carved cave ceiling. The £4.26- million award will fund the creation of a national centre of excellence for telling the ice age story to schoolchildren, the local community and tourists. A museum and education centre will be built and a local road rerouted to protect the site. Discoveries on the soft limestone roof of images of animals, dancing girls and female sexual parts proved conclusively that ancient Britons were part of, rather than an excluded from, a continent-wide culture. Among the images created by a Palaeolithic artist about 13,000 years ago were a menagerie of birds, bison, deer and bears. The pictures are not drawings, but modification of the rock. The artists saw something resembling a bison's head and then added an eye, muzzle and ear to produce a realistic head. The artists behind the crag pictures would have spent summers in the area feasting on migrating reindeer, but the winters on lowlands which now form the North Sea, or in the Netherlands or central Rhine areas. Already, the caves attract about 28,000 visitors a year, bringing much needed income to the former mining village. Visitors can see iron age stone tools which were found in the caves. The British Museum is one of several organisations which have agreed to loan artefacts and exhibitions once the new museum has been built.

Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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