Spain’s Altamira caves, which contain some of the world’s best prehistoric paintings, are to be reopened to the public, despite warnings that human breath will destroy the 20,000-year-old paintings.
Spain’s Culture Ministry announced this week that the site would be reopened from the end of the year, a move scientists said carried “immeasurable” risks.
Discovered in 1879, the vast caves in the Cantabria region of northern Spain, dubbed the “Sistine chapel of Paleolithic art”, are covered in paintings of herds of European bison, bulls and other animals.
They were first closed in 1977, after scientists discovered that the paintings in red, ochre and black were being damaged by carbon dioxide from the breath of the huge numbers of visitors.
Authorities reopened the site in 1982, with тιԍнт restrictions on the number of visitors allowed in each year.
The waiting list to view the paintings at the caves, which were declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1985, became so long that visitors had to book three years in advance.
The caves were finally closed to the public completely in 2002, after scientists detected green mould stains on the fragile masterpieces in the main chamber, a fate that has also befallen prehistoric cave paintings in neighbouring France.
Experts blame the deterioration on a change in the fragile atmosphere of the cave caused by a combination of light, visitors’ body heat, and moisture from their breath.
An exact replica of the caves and its paintings was created within a museum a few hundred feet from the original near the town of Santillana del Mar.
But culture chiefs have now decided to resume visits to the original caves on a restricted basis from the end of this year.
In doing so, they will go against the advice of the government’s main scientific research body, the CSIC, which has spent years analysing the caves and the paintings.
“The people who go in the cave have the bad habit of moving, breathing and perspiring,” was one conclusion reached in CSIC report published in April.
“We have made it very clear that it should not be reopened at this time,” said Sergio Sanchez Moral, director of the team that spent the last two years analysing the caves and treating the problem mould.
“The caves have recovered from the damage, but to open them again is not a good idea. The risks are immeasurable.”
Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, Spain’s minister of culture, announced the reopening on Tuesday and said a committee would be formed to decide what restrictions should be placed to minimise the risk of damage.
The move was immediately welcomed by Miguel Angel Revilla, the president of the Cantabrian region in northern Spain.
“Altamira is an ᴀsset we cannot do without,” he said before adding that he would invite US President Barack Obama to be the first person to view the caves when they reopened.
