Cave of Forgotten Dreams Page #2

They look like

they might have been made

We are coming here to one of

the great spots of the cave,

which is the famous panel

of the horses.

It is of the... - one of the size

of a small recess.

And this small hole there

is where water comes out,

gurgling,

after there's been

something like a week of rain.

And that probably explains

why all those animals

were painted around that hole.

It's one of the great works

of art in the world.

For these Paleolithic painters,

the play of light and shadows

from their torches

could possibly have looked

something like this.

For them, the animals perhaps

appeared moving, living.

We should note that the artists

painted this bison

with eight legs,

suggesting movement,

almost a form of proto-cinema.

The walls themselves

are not flat

but have their own

three-dimensional dynamic,

their own movement, which was

utilized by the artists.

In the upper left corner,

another multilegged animal.

And the rhino to the right

seems also to have

the illusion of movement,

like frames

in an animated film.

The painters of the cave

seem to speak to us

from a familiar

yet distant universe.

But what we are seeing here

is part of millions

of spatial points.

Today scientists have mapped

every single millimeter

of the cave

using laser scanners.

The position of every feature

in the cave is known.

This is the shape of the cave

in its entirety.

From end to end,

it is about 1,300 feet long.

This map is the basis

for all scientific projects

being done here.

- We are working to create

new understanding of the cave

through that precision,

through scientific methods,

but that's not, I think,

the main goal.

The main goal

is to create stories

about what could have happened

in that cave during the past.

It is like

you are creating

the phone directory

of Manhattan.

Four million precise entries,

but do they dream?

Do they cry at night?

What are their hopes?

What are their families?

You'll... - we'll never know

from the phone directory.

- Definitely.

We will never know,

because past is definitely lost.

We will never reconstruct

the past.

We can only create

a representation

of what alre... -

what exists now, today.

You are a human being.

I am a human being.

And here when you come

to that cave,

of course there are some things.

I have my own background.

What is your background,

if I may ask?

- Well, I used to be

a circus man before,

but I switched to archaeology.

Circus?

Doing what?

Lion tamer?

- Well, mostly... -

not lion tamer,

but mostly unicycle

and juggling, yeah.

The first time I entered

to Chauvet Cave,

I had a chance to get in

during five days,

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