Post by L Roebuck on Mar 7, 2008 8:14:23 GMT -5
With all the WNS and fungus chatter the last weeks this article came to mind. We had the wonderful privilege of seeing Lascaux Cave, back in 2000, and I must say it is a fortress of climate equipment, air lock doors, etc, etc. The way the system was set-up I am amazed any mold or fungus could possibly gain entry into the cave.
Saving Beauty
By JAMES GRAFF / LASCAUX , Time
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Saving Beauty
By JAMES GRAFF / LASCAUX , Time
Yet Lascaux's robust longevity belies a frightening fragility. Five years ago, after the ill-conceived installation of new climatic equipment, Lascaux suffered an outbreak of fungal infection that threatened to destroy in a few years what thousands of millenniums had left largely unscathed. The cave's custodians are still struggling to eradicate this scourge. Since a journalist from French science magazine La Recherche was allowed into the cave three years ago, there has been no independent assessment of how they are faring. As a result, concerns have circulated among prehistorians in France and throughout the world that the rescue operation itself was endangering the cave's delicate equilibrium, and further damaging the site.
Last month French officials admitted to Time that the Fusarium solani fungus has on occasion spread from the floor to the paintings, and that separate fusarium strains have now been identified in the various arms of the 235-m cave complex. Time was allowed to visit the cave because its keepers feel they finally have the outbreak under control. But to keep the fungus in retreat, a team of restorers comes into the cave every two weeks — dressed, as everyone who enters now must be, in hooded biohazard suits, booties and face masks — to remove filaments from the walls. Another team visits regularly to audit the cave's sanitary condition using laser imaging. "They tell us the cave's condition is stable," says one member of the Scientific Committee of Lascaux Cave, set up by the French Ministry of Culture in 2002 to deal with the problem. "But that's what they say about Ariel Sharon." The sad fact is that today's visitors to Lascaux come to look not for wonder, insight or inspiration. They come to look for fluffy tufts of mold.
Last month French officials admitted to Time that the Fusarium solani fungus has on occasion spread from the floor to the paintings, and that separate fusarium strains have now been identified in the various arms of the 235-m cave complex. Time was allowed to visit the cave because its keepers feel they finally have the outbreak under control. But to keep the fungus in retreat, a team of restorers comes into the cave every two weeks — dressed, as everyone who enters now must be, in hooded biohazard suits, booties and face masks — to remove filaments from the walls. Another team visits regularly to audit the cave's sanitary condition using laser imaging. "They tell us the cave's condition is stable," says one member of the Scientific Committee of Lascaux Cave, set up by the French Ministry of Culture in 2002 to deal with the problem. "But that's what they say about Ariel Sharon." The sad fact is that today's visitors to Lascaux come to look not for wonder, insight or inspiration. They come to look for fluffy tufts of mold.
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