From this Friday and until March 15th, 2015, Brussels will host, at the Cinquantenaire Museum, the "Lascaux" mobile exhibition, voted best Touring Exhibition of the Year in 2013. The event was presented to the press on Thursday by Belgian museum officials and French regional authorities. The exhibition has already received 700,000 visitors worldwide and will set up its winter quarters in the Belgian capital for its only European stop before heading to Japan in 2016. The show-piece of the exhibition is undoubtedly the reproductions of sections of the Nave and the Shaft. Up to now, these two areas of the cave were not well known by the general public since they were missing from the Montignac cave reconstruction. The real cave, listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site, has in fact been closed to the public since 1963, since the flood of visitors was changing the delicate balance of the air in the cave, reminded the various stakeholders.
In addition to giving visitors an insider’s view into our ancestors' artistic tendencies, they will also be able to learn more about the cave and its history. On show there will be photographs, films, and previously unseen archives depicting numerous events, such as the cave’s discovery in 1940, its closure to the public and the creation of the first reproduction in the 80's (Lascaux II).
The icing on the cake will be the Belgian section of the exhibition dedicated to the "Sistine Chapel of Prehistory". This section will feature the large collections of the Cinquantenaire Museum Prehistory Department and the Natural Science Museum.
(Source: Belga)
