Marseille, Cosquer

Posted byrkrontheroadPosted inart, caves, Europe, France, history, Photography, TravelTags:, , , , , ,

I had been through Marseille decades ago while visiting French towns where Impressionist artists had painted (links below), but it was just a train connection. This time I had a day to wander and visit one more ancient cave painting site. My wanderings were planned to take me to the Cosquer cave on the Mediterranean Sea, but there were some interesting sights along the way as I descended the hill from my hotel.

Open-faced salmon crêpe for breakfast
Marseille Cathedral

Not part of the tour I took the week before that covered five prehistoric painted caves (links below), I found Cosquer on my own. As with several of the larger, newly discovered, painted caves in the south of France, a replica has been constructed, opened in 2022, to preserve the original cave. Cosquer is unique in that it is underwater, about 37 meters (121 feet) below sea level. The entry was inside a building where one boards a boat designed to move through the constructed cave. A further complication is that the sea is rising and beginning to submerge some of the images on the actual cave walls, so it was critical to create the copy.

Cosquer entrance
Map of Cosquer

Henri Cosquer, a professional diver and director of a diving school nearby, explored connected caves along the cliffs and shoreline. In 1985, he discovered a small hole that led to a cave with beautiful stalactites and stalagmites, which he visited several times. Moving through the tunnel in 1991, he found a stencil of a human hand in red, leading to the discovery of the larger cave complex with drawings and engravings. A few months later, a group of other divers looked for the cave with insufficient equipment, got lost, and three of them died. Cosquer retrieved their bodies and notified authorities. The site was soon authenticated by Jean Clottes at the Ministry of Culture, and protections put in place.

Homo sapiens created the Cosquer art as long ago as 30,000 years. There are about five hundred drawings and engravings, two hundred animal figures, and seventy hand prints. In the photo below, notice that the two left-side fingers are shorter; historians have interpreted that as perhaps a clan symbol rather than an injury, since there are other similar images with variations found in other caves.

Note: I didn’t take photos in the caves or the museum. The following images are from Wikimedia Commons, an Internet source of photos in the public domain.

Extinct animals at Musée de la Grotte Cosquer

My last day by the sea, I took advantage of the fresh seafood restaurants along the shoreline.

Mussels at the Mediterranean
Dusk from my hotel room

South of France trip: Saintes, Saint-Césaire, Les Eyzies, Font-de-Gaume cave, Lascaux, Les Combarelles, Pech-Merle caves, L’Aven d’Orgnac, Sarlot, Chauvet, Montpellier, Arles, Marseille, Cosquer

Impressionist artists in France trip (2021): Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence, Paris as a base, Van Gogh in Auvers, Rouen and Le Havre, Monet in Giverny

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Published by rkrontheroad

Writer, photographer, traveler

31 thoughts on “Marseille, Cosquer”

  1. Wonderful post! Those photos are great. I would love to see that cave too. It’s so fascunatung to see how we humans have changed overtime through art work. We sometimes get so lost in our present age that we forget the wonder of the past—our humble beginnings.

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  13. Such a fascinating cave, and what a location. So sad that the original is slowly being covered by rising waters. I assume the cave entrance was originally above the water. Do they know when it started to flood? Maggie

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  17. Wow! This is fantastic. I’ve visited Marseille a couple of times, but both times were before 2022– therefore, I did not know about Cosquer and the pre-historic caves right in the middle of the city. Looks fascinating, sort of like the Lascaux caves. I’ll have to return to Marseille to see Cosquer some time!

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    1. Glad you enjoyed this. Lascaux, Chauvet, and Cosquer were the three reconstructed caves and the largest and most beautiful, discovered in modern days. We are fortunate to be able to preserve and visit them. Thanks, Rebecca!

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  18. We once had a day exploring Marseille after a football match but didn’t get beyond the harbour area and old town. We’ve been saying we’d like to go back for a proper look around one day – if we do I’ll definitely make a point of visiting Cosquer as it sounds amazing! Thank you for sharing it 🙂

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