Cosquer Cave

Cosquer Cave is the only known decorated Ice Age cave whose entrance now lies beneath the sea. The way in opens 37 metres down at the foot of the cliffs of Cap Morgiou, in the limestone inlets east of Marseille, and a passage about 175 metres long climbs from there to chambers that still hold air. When people last painted here, the Mediterranean shore lay several kilometres further out and the sea stood more than a hundred metres lower; as it rose after the last glaciation, the water sealed the entrance and flooded most of the cave, wiping out whatever art the lower galleries held.

What survives on the walls of the dry chambers is remarkable. Radiocarbon dating of pigments and charcoal shows that people came here over many thousands of years, roughly between 33,000 and 20,000 years ago. The older phase is dominated by stencilled hands in red and black, among them some with fingers that appear shortened, as in the Pyrenean cave of Gargas. The later phase brought animals: horses above all, then ibex, deer, bison and aurochs. Most unusual are the sea creatures, found almost nowhere else in Palaeolithic art: seals, fish, what may be jellyfish, and great auks, flightless seabirds hunted to extinction in the 19th century, which at first were mistaken for penguins.

The submerged entrance was found in 1985 by Henri Cosquer, a professional diver from nearby Cassis, but the paintings were only noticed in 1991, and the cave was declared to the authorities that September, after three other divers lost their way in the flooded passage and died. Archaeologists Jean Clottes and Jean Courtin led the first studies, and the cave was protected as a historic monument in 1992. In 2022 a full-size replica opened in the Villa Méditerranée beside Marseille's Old Port. Marseille itself, founded by Greek settlers from Phocaea around 600 BC, is France's oldest city and its largest port.

Getting there

The cave lies at Cap Morgiou, about 6 km from the southern Marseille district of Mazargues and inside the Calanques National Park. The painted chambers are reached only by divers, so for most people the place to see the art is the replica in the Villa Méditerranée, near the Old Port in central Marseille, a walk from Marseille Saint-Charles station. The nearest airport is Marseille Provence (MRS), about 32 km away.