Altamira Caves Cuevas de Altamira

The Museum, housed in three pavilions near the caves, can be visited without prior application. It contains a variety of Stone Age material and has displays illustrating the life of Stone Age man. Particularly interesting is the third pavilion, which shows a video film on the paintings and illustrates Stone Age burial practices; one remarkable exhibit is the remains of a Palaeolithic man enclosed in a block of transparent plastic.

The caves were accidentally discovered by a hunter in 1869. They were first explored by an archaeologist, Marcellino Sanz de Sautuola, in 1875, and four years later he discovered the underground chambers containing the paintings. His belief that the paintings were prehistoric was not shared by the learned world of the day, and it was only after the discovery of similar paintings at Font-de-Gaume in southern France in 1901-02 that the authenticity of the Altamira paintings was generally accepted. Most of them are dated to the late Magdalenian period (c. 15,000- 10,000 B.C..), though some more primitive paintings are around 10,000 years older.

Visitors follow the course of an underground river to reach the Sala de Pinturas, the beauty and vivid coloring of which have earned it the style of the "Sistine Chapel of cave art". The ceiling of the chamber, which measures 9 by 18m (30 by 60ft), is covered with paintings of animals, including several bison (one of them over 2m/6-1/2ft high), a red wild horse, a wild boar and a hind. The Stone Age artists used the structure of the rock and the areas of shadow to achieve spatial effect and movement. The predominant colors are red, ochre and brown, obtained by the use of minerals mixed with water. The pigments were applied with a finger or a stick, or directly by rubbing the minerals on the rock. The outlines of the animals are drawn in charcoal. Some of the paintings have been damaged by the cracking or erosion of the rock.

To the left of the Museum a narrow path leads through a fence to a stalactitic cave discovered some years ago which has some very fine stalagmites. The cave, like the Museum, can be visited without prior reservation.