Coliboaia Cave
Coliboaia Cave (Romanian: peștera Coliboaia, pronounced [koliˈbo̯aja]) is located in Apuseni Natural Park, Câmpani, Bihor County, Romania. It contains the oldest known cave paintings of Central Europe,[1] radiocarbon dated to 32,000 and 35,000 BP,[2][3] corresponding to the Aurignacian and Gravettian cultures of the Paleolithic period.[4] The Coliboaia Cave was first mentioned in history before 1900, but it was never extensively investigated until 1981 by Gabor Halasi. This cave was not well known until September 2009, when they found prehistoric cave paintings. It then became protected by the Romanian Federation of Speleology. Situated on a western slope of Sighestel Valley, the cave sits at an altitude of 560 meters. It has a medium sized entrance and a portal that is oriented east to west.
To access the Art Gallery, people must go through a great chamber, natural lake, and main gallery. The Art Gallery itself is seven meters above ground. The drawings there are representations of animals, done in black. likely with charcoal. Some of the animals depicted include bison, bears, and rhinos. There are also some drawings that remain unknown. The images are on both walls of the cave and do not appear to have any type of symmetrical pattern.
On the right wall, there is a drawing of a bison. The picture is 1.43-2.02 meters above the ground and is made of bluish-gray lines. On the left side, a head of a black rhino is illustrated 58-89 centimeters above the floor. A consistent element to these drawings is that they are heads of animals, not full figures. The time of origin of the pictures is unknown. Archaeologists’ estimates vary from the Early/MIddle Upper Paleolithic (29000-23000 BP) to the Aurignacian Period (35000-29000 BP). The lack of bears and rhinos pictured in the cave, however, contradicts such because those animals were scarce during these time periods. Furthermore, the drawings do not appear to be completely uniform. This suggests they were not all done at the same time. [1]
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