Prehistoric Images Threatened by Fungi (French Scientists Surrender To Mold)

Wall Street Journal ^ | Tuesday, May 6, 2003 | BENJAMIN IVRY

[WaveThatFlag]

Cave paintings are among man's earliest and most precious recorded creations, and those in Lascaux, near Montignac in the Dordogne region of France, are among the most celebrated and admired of their kind. Dating back some 17,000 years, they feature over 1,500 pictures of animals, many of unique beauty and dynamism.

[areafiftyone]

Prehistoric Images threatened by Fungi

Hillary has Fungi!!! YUCK!!!

[boris]

Fungi from Yuggoth.

[boris]

Here's an idea: send in a robot carrying a powerful gamma source, like Cesium 137. Kill every living thing in the cave. Then withdraw the robot and spray plastic over the paintings.

Why would this not work?

--Boris

[hillsborofox]

French Scientists Surrender To Mold.

Proof again that the French will surrender to anything.

[WaveThatFlag]

Plastic is not static and tends to become opaque over time. Why do you think they have not pulled a slip cover job on the Sisteen Chapel?

[WaveThatFlag]

Proof again that the French will surrender to anything.

The footnote was mine, not the Journal's.

[hillsborofox]

Oh. I'm an idiot! (At least before noon.)

[Bahbah]

"The footnote was mine,"
And a very good one at that.

[boris]

"Plastic is not static and tends to become opaque over time."

You seem to speak with authority. I am not an expert on polymers, especially the spray-on protective kind. How many are there? Do they all become opaque over time?

How about the clear-coat they spray on cars?

My point is that it should be easy to kill the existing mold, and possibly apply some sort of protectant against future mold attacks. Maybe the spray would have to be refreshed every so often.

--Boris

[WaveThatFlag]

I am no expert either, but I do know two things: It is going to be impossible to remove anything you put on without destroying the paintings, and it is impossible to predict the behavior of any type of plastic over the time period that we are talking about (thousands of years).

[dark_lord]

I think you are on the right track. No, you can't spray anything on. The radiation would work -- but this treatment would probably have to be reapplied every year or so. The question about radiation would be -- would it affect the pigments. Don't know, but maybe.

Another approach would be to simply fill the cave with an atmosphere that would be toxic to the mold. Find a gas that the mold can't survive, pump the cave full of it for a day, and you are done. Of course, you would have to test that the gas would not react with the pigments.

[TaMoDee]

The gamma source treatment just might work. However rock
"breathes" and the plastic would trap moisture, etc and thusly the rock would spall and destroy the painting.

[Yardstick]

...thanks to bureaucratic incompetence a good part of Lascaux may be permanently destroyed.

You mean the enlightened French have allowed irrepleacable cultural treasures to be destroyed?

[WaveThatFlag]

Right. If the cave were filled with helium and had an airlock, the scientists could still work in space suits.

[ffusco]

My grandparents had clear slip covers on their furniture, looked like new after 35 years. Hated sitting on them in the summer. ---RRRRippppp! They also had one of those lamps that looks like a girl taking a shower.......

I could go for a meat-ball sandwich now.......

[ffusco]

Why stop at the cave? Let's irradiate all of France.

[ffusco]

Cave drawings depict cave men and animals, such famous drawings include: "The Backstabber" , "Man without a conscience", The Effeminate Man", "Man Running Away ", "Hiding man" and the icon "The Dirty Caveman"- complete with stink lines.

[SunkenCiv]

Not a ping, just a GGG update.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[Skooz]

LOL!!