History of a discovery: the modeling gallery

As is the case with many caves at the start of the XNUMXth century, the Bédeilhac cave attracts many scholars and prehistorians. The new science, Prehistory, fascinates and the discoveries which follow one another everywhere in France, leave everyone to dream ... we stir the soil, we explore further underground, we look on the walls for the slightest line, the slightest engraving, we search and we sometimes find ...

It was in this context that on August 16, 1927, Joseph Mandement and some friends entered for the first time a new gallery in the Bédeilhac cave.

After having crawled for a long time in a particularly low and narrow tunnel, the men come out into a large room. And there, what a surprise! A large animal body has been drawn with a black line on a wall. It appears to be a horse, but neither the head nor the forelegs are drawn.

A little further on, a drawing of a bison is discovered, then another horse drawn with clay ...

For 3 years, visits are linked in this gallery, difficult to access, which seems to have revealed all its secrets. Yet an essential element has not yet been discovered… Works created thanks to an artistic technique very rare in prehistory are there, in the gallery…

These are indeed clay models! Protected by a small rocky ledge, four bison as well as a female sex and an enigmatic sign are discovered. The technique consisted in modeling the surface of the ground without ever loosening the clay. The representations are no more than 1,5cm thick… you needed lighting at ground level to see them!

The technique of modeling clay is only found in very few caves and only in the Pyrenees! Three are in Ariège: the Tuc d'Audoubert, Labouïche and Bédeilhac. A fourth borders the department, at Montespan (in Haute-Garonne).

The clay models can take the form of bas-relief, high-relief or in the round. The bison is the animal most often represented.

The conservation of modeled works is particularly difficult: any infiltration of water would cause their disappearance and it goes without saying that a human or animal passage would crush them. We can therefore think that this technique was more widely used but that the works did not withstand time or unscrupulous visitors.

Bédeilhac's clay models are undoubtedly among the most fragile and moving works of prehistoric art! You will therefore understand that the modeling gallery cannot be visited ...