The Altamira Cave, discovered by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola in 1879, is located inside the Museum of Altamira on one of the hills surrounding the reclusive and pleasant valley that shelters the universal village of Santillana del Mar. The discovery raised a heated controversy among archaeologists because it did not believe that prehistoric men were able to make some very good paintings.
The main room, called polychromatic room, has been regarded as the “Sistine Chapel of Quaternary art.” At its roof represent nearly a hundred animals and signs, highlighting the 21 bison in different attitudes, along with other animals like deer, horses, goats, cattle, plus signs, hands and human figures, sometimes overlapping, made technical number-pattern, silhouette, painting, scraping and shading effects, which result in a composition of beauty and great movement, unique in the Paleolithic art.

Its realization dates back 14,000 years. The rest of the cave (which has a longitudinal development of 270 m) contains numerous engravings, even older, and an important archaeological site in the lobby. Altamira cave has been declared World Heritage by UNESCO.
Actually, from September 2002, the Altamira Cave is closed to the public for research purposes. Not currently supported applications visita.EL DISCOVERY

Very near Santillana del Mar, is the cave of Altamira, a unique chapter in the history of primitive art. In the summer of 1879, a kid of 12 years, daughter of the mountain caballero Don Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, a friend walks by excavation and land next to his house, the father said, looking at the roof of one of the caves visited: “Dad, look, painted bulls!”.
He has publicly Sanz Sautuola of what that discovery in the cave of Altamira could mean. Was not recognized, however, the international media dedicated to the study of the emerging prehistory, the importance of the seen and studied by the mountain men. An authority on such studies, the French specialist M. Cartailhac to deny the authenticity of the paintings and capitanea the most stubborn opposition against the claims of the Spanish.

These, however eventually break into academies and conferences, and finally recognizes nobility Cartailhac his previous mistake and correcting it believed until then, in the pages of one of his Mea Culpa Sceptique. But Sanz de Sautuola has already died. It is very sincere repentance of the French teacher, and there is always visiting the cave of Altamira’s happening before, to greet Sautuola María, the daughter of the mountain men: the girl who one summer day, amazed, the father said those paintings drawn on the roof of the cavern.
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