Publication of the Proceedings of the Symposium "Lascaux and Preservation issues in Subterranean Environments" held in Paris in February 2009 |  |
| The book entitled: "Lascaux and Preservation issues in Subterranean Environments"
"Proceedings of the International Symposium" "Paris, February 26-27, 2009" was officialy
launched during a ceremony that took place on Tuesday January 10, 2012
at the Foundation "Maison des Sciences de l'Homme" in Paris. The
ceremony was presided by M. Marc Drouet, Deputy Director for Archeology
at the Direction of the Heritage in the Ministry of Culture and
Communication.
The book was introduced by Noël Coye, Curator of the Heritage at the Ministry of Culture and Communication, who had been in charge of organizing the symposium in February 2009 and of compiling the book which has just been published. The book contains the texts of the conferences presented by the speakers at the symposium, as well as transcriptions of the interventions of the experts who took part in the round tables and those of the discussions with the public. Besides the very nice way in which the book has been realized - the setting, print and illustration are superb -, the good quality of the translations, and the excellent initiative of making of it a fully bilingual edition that even includes summaries of the talks in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese, it is worth pointing out, as indicated by M. Coye, that the book was published in a relatively short time after the symposium was held. Even if the written text of some talks was, at some places, significantly "modulated" as compared to the corresponding oral presentations, the major interest of this book resides, in our view, on the fact that it will be a historical document showing the state of mind and the vision, as they were at a key moment of the cave's history, of the curators and the experts in charge of the preservation of Lascaux. Indeed, the Symposium marked a milestone in the history of Lascaux: as pointed out by Jean-Michel Geneste, former Curator of Lascaux, General Curator of the Heritage, the symposium was held at the time when it was realized at the highest level of the french administration that introducing a real scientific multidisciplinarity in archeological studies and in preservation was an absolute necessity. The proceedings of the symposium reflect rather well how much a defined scientific methodology, a rigourous scientific approach and a real integration of "hard" sciences were badly missing, during the crisis of the years 2000-2009, in the studies and preservation of Lascaux. The announcement made, in her opening lecture, by Mrs Christine Albanel, then minister of Culture and Communication, of the replacement of the preceding Scientific Commitee by an International Scientific Council that would be autonomous, composed exclusively of scientists, leaving a larger space to experts in hard sciences (biology, climatology, chemistry), and including foreign experts, marked the starting point of an evolution in the right direction of which we hope that it will continue. The official presentation of the book is accessible on the internet site of the ministry. The editor is "Éditions de la Maison des Sciences" and the ISBN number is 978 7351 11237. |
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