Monte Castillo is a small unassuming, conical shaped hill bristling with bolding patches of conifer made messy by recent forestry work. In short it is no picture postcard. However, the subterranean world at the heart of this hill tells a very different story.
The narrow cave entrance of Monte Castillo opens into a vast cavern and I am immediately struck by its warmth, of temperature yes, but also colour and texture. The architecture is a natural opulence of domed ceilings, high walls and annexes. The interior is lavishly furnished with limestone cascades, columns and cornicing of gothic and rococo like grandeur. Throughout, the surfaces are marbled with ribbons of mineral deposits that unravel around the cave system like a natural fresco celebrating the patience of earth’s geology. In short, this is not a hovel that prehistoric man endured but a place to be celebrated like a palace or cathedral. Judging from the next chambers we see, it clearly was.
Our guide directs us with her torch picking out antlers, hooves and hind legs as charcoal drawn deer and buffalo gallop across the cave walls in front of us. Fleeting glimpses as the torchlight travels over the rocky landscape. At one point the beam falls on a forest of hand patterns stencilled on the wall using a primitive airbrush, these are 28 000 years old. The outline of a buffalo grazes amongst them, this is figurative art painted on later, around 18 – 12000 years ago, and below that in the same annex is a latticed bow pattern, abstract imagery from 10000 years ago. So illuminated within the same beam of torch light I am looking at different stages of art history from a period spanning 18000 years. The tour of this particular cave system ends in a tunnel decorated with a long trail of red discs. Like a landing strip, this ‘runway’ of discs is thought to be a kind of signage guiding people or perhaps spirits into the caves.
We finish the day with a tour of Los Monidas, known to be inhabited at a later time because its paintings do not depict the warm climate animals seen in the first cave but reindeer and horses which were present during a more recent period of cold around 16-10000 yrs ago. These drawings are all concentrated in one small, hard to reach cavern that suggests some kind of sanctuary. Most are drawn in black charcoal or mineral with an incredibly delicate line. Always, a portion of rock is chosen because something about its form suggests a part of anatomy or posture, hence the theory of evoking something out of nothing or making the rock come alive. One thing I do not agree with is a statement made, that these artists never depicted the landscape, but I see many examples where the presence of the drawings create space and depth out of the surrounding rocks. Why should the cave painters not be aware of this too?
The narrow cave entrance of Monte Castillo opens into a vast cavern and I am immediately struck by its warmth, of temperature yes, but also colour and texture. The architecture is a natural opulence of domed ceilings, high walls and annexes. The interior is lavishly furnished with limestone cascades, columns and cornicing of gothic and rococo like grandeur. Throughout, the surfaces are marbled with ribbons of mineral deposits that unravel around the cave system like a natural fresco celebrating the patience of earth’s geology. In short, this is not a hovel that prehistoric man endured but a place to be celebrated like a palace or cathedral. Judging from the next chambers we see, it clearly was.
Our guide directs us with her torch picking out antlers, hooves and hind legs as charcoal drawn deer and buffalo gallop across the cave walls in front of us. Fleeting glimpses as the torchlight travels over the rocky landscape. At one point the beam falls on a forest of hand patterns stencilled on the wall using a primitive airbrush, these are 28 000 years old. The outline of a buffalo grazes amongst them, this is figurative art painted on later, around 18 – 12000 years ago, and below that in the same annex is a latticed bow pattern, abstract imagery from 10000 years ago. So illuminated within the same beam of torch light I am looking at different stages of art history from a period spanning 18000 years. The tour of this particular cave system ends in a tunnel decorated with a long trail of red discs. Like a landing strip, this ‘runway’ of discs is thought to be a kind of signage guiding people or perhaps spirits into the caves.
We finish the day with a tour of Los Monidas, known to be inhabited at a later time because its paintings do not depict the warm climate animals seen in the first cave but reindeer and horses which were present during a more recent period of cold around 16-10000 yrs ago. These drawings are all concentrated in one small, hard to reach cavern that suggests some kind of sanctuary. Most are drawn in black charcoal or mineral with an incredibly delicate line. Always, a portion of rock is chosen because something about its form suggests a part of anatomy or posture, hence the theory of evoking something out of nothing or making the rock come alive. One thing I do not agree with is a statement made, that these artists never depicted the landscape, but I see many examples where the presence of the drawings create space and depth out of the surrounding rocks. Why should the cave painters not be aware of this too?
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