Craig shook his head in astonishment, so overpowered with surprise and rapture that he was speechless.
All around and above them, on the walls and across the ceiling, animals seemed to race or graze, to swim or leap or simply pose to be admired. Paintings on the rock, so many that Tess couldn't count them or comprehend their complex flowing pattern, the animals frequently overlapping, their images static yet somehow in motion, a huge eternal rampant herd.
'Yes,' Gerrard said, his voice sounding choked, 'so magnificent, so awesomely beautiful that they make me want to cry. I've been here innumerable times, and their effect on me is always the same. Their splendor makes me ache. You realize now that I wasn't exaggerating. They're one of the greatest wonders in the world. To me, they represent the soul of the planet.'
Deer, elk, bison, horses, ibex, bears, lions, mammoths. More, many more, including species that Tess could not identify, Presumably because they were extinct.
Some were engraved in the rock, the figures outlined with charcoal. Others were silhouetted in red, the lines either solid or composed of large dots. The animals were life-size. On the ceiling, an eight-foot-long deer had racks of spreading, many-pronged antlers that were almost equally long. The contours of the ceiling had been used to indicate bulging muscles in the deer's back and legs.
The style of the paintings was eerily realistic as if the animals were alive and any moment could leap off the walls. At the same time, the style was surreal, causing the magnificent creatures to look oddly distorted, some foreshortened, others elongated, a distortion that added paradoxically to the powerful effect. The animals curved gracefully around projections in the rock. They rippled dramatically in and out of cracks and fissues. An elk appeared to be swimming. A horse appeared to be falling. Moisture in the limestone made them shimmer. Breathtaking.
'Who painted these?' Craig managed to ask. 'When? You said this cave was discovered in the eighteen hundreds. But before then, rocks had barricaded the entrance. How old are-?'
'Twenty thousand years.'
'What?'
'These paintings come from a time when human beings had only recently appeared,' Fulano said. 'Who painted them? Our immediate evolutionary ancestors. A type of human called Cro-Magnon. Obviously their sense of beauty, their admiration for nature, was immense. In that respect, compared to our own disrespect for nature, perhaps our species hasn't evolved but regressed. Sometimes you hear these people referred to as "cave men, " an absurd expression because the Cro-Magnons never lived in caves. How could they have tolerated the chill and the dampness?' Fulano shook his head. 'No, they lived outside the caves. But for reasons that anthropologists haven't been able to determine, they sometimes went into the caves, deep within, and in chambers similar to this one, they painted the glory of the animals. It's my opinion that these chambers were their churches, that they came here on special occasions, perhaps at the vernal equinox and the summer solstice, to worship the miracle of rebirth and growth, to initiate children about to become adults and show them the mysteries of the tribe. The greatest mystery – life. A place of adoration, of sublime appreciation for what this planet is all about.'
Gerrard added to Fulano's explanation. 'This wasn't the only such sanctuary to be discovered during the eighteen hundreds.'
Tess nodded. 'I've heard about, although I've never seen, the paintings at Lascaux in France, and many others, including those at Altamira here in Spain.'
'But Lascaux was discovered in the nineteen forties,' Fulano said. 'As far as historians believe, Altamira – three hundred kilometers west of here – was the first to be explored. In eighteen seventy-nine. But my ancestor discovered these paintings ten years before. He knew instinctively that no expert in pre-history would believe in their authenticity. How could primitive human beings have produced such exquisite beauty? Scholars would conclude that these brilliant paintings were recent, cleverly forged. To prevent his discovery from being ridiculed, he kept it to himself, placing a door across the cave, preserving it for himself, his family, and special friends. His instincts served him well, for when Altamira was discovered, the experts scoffed. Only when other caves with paintings were discovered in France did anthropologists admit their mistake and accept the images at Altamira as authentic. Lascaux and Altamira are so impressive that they're often referred to as the Sistine Chapels of paleolithic art. But I've seen Lascaux, and I've seen Altamira, and I tell you that they can't compare to what you've been privileged to witness. This is the true Sistine Chapel of paleolithic art. My ancestor was wise in another respect as well. He understood that this cave, after tens of thousands of years of not being disturbed, was so delicate that if people flocked to see these images, the warmth from their bodies would affect its ecology. The soil on their shoes would leave contaminants. The breath from their mouths would add to the humidity on the walls. These paintings, preserved by a blessed accident of nature, would be destroyed by fungus and the soot from torches. Only a few special witnesses could ever be allowed inside. The twentieth century proves that he was correct. So many tourists entered Lascaux that the paintings became covered with destructive green mold. The cave had to be sealed again, only experts allowed to enter and even then only after special precautions were taken, for example a disinfecting pool through which the limited observers had to step in order to kill the contaminants on their shoes. At Altamira, only a few can enter each day, and only then by appointment. But here, in this isolated cave in this isolated valley, even fewer are allowed to enter. The double doors provide an extra buffer, a way of keeping the outside air filled with pollen and seeds from entering the inner chamber. You were told that this would be the greatest memory of your lives. I assure you that, after a hundred years and more, your memories are shared by a precious minority.'
'And you haven't even seen the best part,' Gerrard said.
'There are other paintings?' Craig raised his eyebrows in amazement.
'Yes, one more chamber,' Fulano said, his dark eyes gleaming. 'The best for last. Come. Appreciate. Worship.'
'Believe me, I already have.'
'Worshipped? Not completely. Not yet. It's just around this bend,' Fulano said. 'Prepare yourselves. The next-to-ultimate revelation will stun your… Well, why should I tell you what to expect? See for yourselves.'
He led. They followed, and as Tess rounded the bend, she gasped, not only in awe but fear. So did Craig.
The chamber, like the previous one, was filled with paintings, images, life-like portrayals of animals. But here the animals were exclusively bulls. Everywhere. And unlike the paintings in the previous chamber, the bulls weren't outlined in charcoal or red. These were multi-colored, not merely silhouetted but completely detailed. Totally realistic. Their hoofs were black, their haunches brown, their humped backs red. Their tails curved as if in a photograph. Their slanted pointed horns, too, were black. And their eyes were so vivid that they seemed about to blink in rigid anger, furious that they'd been captured eternally on the walls and the ceiling, their legs thrusting, their muscles straining, their bodies arching, an example of – a celebration of – the strength of nature, the strikingly beautiful surge and power of the universe, which twenty thousand years later was on the verge of being destroyed.
'The colors come from powdered carbon, ochre, and iron oxide, mixed with animal fat and blood. The technique is known as polychrome,' Gerrard said, 'and there are only two other sites, Lascaux and Altamira, where it was used to such a degree. Immensely sophisticated. Superbly executed. The greatest artwork that human beings have ever created. Because the message is the greatest – the enormous vitality of nature. But as the green mold on the paintings at Lascaux makes clear, our interference with nature has caused its vitality to be weakened to the point of extinction. We have a sacred responsibility. At any cost, the sickness of the planet must be reversed.'