Posted on 08/08/2024 1:02:35 PM PDT by Red Badger
This vibrant reminder of the human need to create art was no match for one idiot with a smart phone and a dream.
The paintings, washed out by water. © Civil Guard photo.
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Cops are investigating the defacement of a 6,000-year-old cave painting in southern Spain. According to authorities, the ancient evidence of the human drive to create was damaged when a local man poured water on it. Why? He was trying to gussy up the painting to take a photo for his Facebook page.
The paintings are located in the Sierra Sur de Jaén mountain in Spain’s Jaén Province. They’re some of the oldest in the world and the UN has recognized their location as a World Heritage Site alongside Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China.
According to a report in the Spanish newspaper El País, the police are investigating a 39-year-old man from the neighboring city of Los Villares in connection with the crime. They kicked off the hunt in May when pictures of the water-logged cave paintings surfaced online.
People love to take pictures of the paintings, which is a normal instinct. What’s not normal is pouring water over them to make sure they glisten and gleam when photographed. After taking the pictures, the man uploaded them to Facebook and tagged his location. It wasn’t hard for authorities to track him down.
Dumbasses trying to score points on social media are just the latest threat to the ancient cave paintings. In 2022, vandals spray-painted a large Spanish flag over another nearby cave painting. The flag was so large it could be spotted from a nearby road. Something similar happened in Australia (also in 2022) when vandals defaced 3,000-year-old rock art.
Vandals are bad, but the inevitable march of time and climate change are the two biggest threats to this invaluable art. As the planet heats up and the oceans rise, we’re losing access to some of these artistic wonders. It may soon be hard to look at them at all, let alone protect them from idiots who want to capture them forever on social media.
In southern France, there’s a cave filled with paintings of prehistoric marine life, penguins, seals, fish, carts, and bears. Reaching it requires diving into the Mediterranean and navigating an underwater cave. Sea levels have risen a lot in the past decade and navigating to the cave is becoming increasingly difficult. Worse, the changing tides are starting to wipe away some of the artwork.
Whether by clout-chasing social media addicts or man-made climate change, humans are the force by which all our artistic endeavors will be destroyed.
PinGGG!....................😣
No words...
6,000 years and this thing never got water on it?
This was in Spain, too!..............
Deep inside a cave. A good portion of Spain’s interior is like a desert. A lot of the Spaghetti Westerns were filmed there....................
People have complete access to this without monitoring? This is awful.
I bet they won’t any more.................🤨
I see....
Well, it could have been worse I suppose:
Foreign tourists cited for shooting up Joshua Tree National Park with paintballs
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/tourists-cited-for-shooting-up-joshua-tree-national-park-with-paintballs/
“On Aug. 4, a park ranger patrolling the Jumbo Rocks Campground saw “fresh yellow paintball splatter” on structures and signs, park officials said. Law enforcement rangers responded to the campground to investigate further, and saw a slingshot inside a vehicle “in plain view.”
“Three individuals visiting from Germany were questioned and admitted firing paintballs with a compressed paintball gun, known as a paintball marker, and slingshots the night before. Rangers searched their vehicle and recovered three slingshots, a paintball marker, paintballs, and other related equipment”
How about a 6,000 year prison sentence at hard labor for him?
“Why don’t you take a picture, it’ll last longer.”
~ Pee Wee Herman
I tried to find that painting a week ago!!
I’ve been there. Was stationed at 29 Palms Marine Corps Base in the early 70’s....................
I googled “Messed up Jesus Painting”................
Nah. Six minutes dangling from a rope would be punishment enough.
Reason this article was written. Everything has to be linked to that. No exceptions.
In southern France, there’s a cave filled with paintings of prehistoric marine life, penguins, seals, fish, carts, and bears. Reaching it requires diving into the Mediterranean and navigating an underwater cave. Sea levels have risen a lot in the past decade and navigating to the cave is becoming increasingly difficult. Worse, the changing tides are starting to wipe away some of the artwork.
No they haven't. Visit any Mediterranean (or other oceans) coastal city and see for yourself. The port is still the port and not under the sea.
THANKS!!!
I watch some guy on youtube that finds stuff on Google Earth and then hikes out to the old ruins in the U.S. Southwest. He is always very respectful.
He has software filters that he’ll use to enhance the photos of cave art to be able to see them better. Beats dumping water on them. Also uses a drone when he can (some places don’t allow drones) and he has software that will create a 3-D image of the ruins.
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