Cave paintings drawn by Paleolithic Cro-Magnon humans will soon be on display in Korea.

The "Lascaux Cave Paintings at Gwangmyeong Cave" exhibit will run from April 16 to Sept. 4 at a complex of caves and its adjacent theme park in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi-do Province.

The Lascaux Caves in the department of Dordogne in southwestern France are home to many Paleolithic relics and cave paintings. Humans used to live in the caves between about 15,000 B.C. and 14,000 B.C., and many of the paintings there of symbols and of wild animals, like cows, deer and cats, are well-known.

The Lascaux Caves were discovered in 1940 and opened to the public in 1948, but they were closed in 1963 after a rising number of visitors and due to concerns that the paintings might be damaged. The caves were added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1979 and for preservation reasons the caves are no longer open to the public, though people can visit the reproduction caves nearby.

During the exhibition at the Gwangmyeong Cave, five full-size reproduction paintings -- 15 meters wide by 5 meters tall -- will be on display, along with some history of how the caves were found and then closed, a 1/10 scale model of the caves and some prehistoric artifacts.

The exhibition is being organized, in part, to mark the 130 years of diplomacy between Seoul and Paris, and this is the first time that paintings from the Lascaux Caves are on display in Asia.

By Chang Iou-chung
Korea.net Staff Writer
Photo: Gwangmyeong Cave
icchang@korea.kr