EXCLUSIVE – This Saturday, the first 4,000 visitors will discover the reconstruction of the cave. Its discoverer guides us between the stalactites and the hundreds of engravings and paintings that make his heart beat.
Special envoy to Marseille
From the portholes of the descent cage, you can see the cliffs of the Calanques furtively before sinking under the water. In the semi-darkness of an underwater station, nacelles advance in single file. A little 72-year-old gentleman in a sailor’s shirt and sandals, a Gimli lookalike in The Lord of the Ringsclimbs alongside us.
Exceptionally, Henri Cosquer, legend of diving and prehistory will be the private guide for the Figaro. Thirty years ago, this Indiana Jones of the sea discovered the cave that bears his name, three-quarters submerged but still adorned with hundreds of paintings and engravings. The “bearded man” as his friends call him in Cassis is, depending on the day, grumpy or cunning with a tongue-in-cheek humour. In fact, as the visual artist Alain Dalis, who reconstructed the decorated panels of the cave, says, “the better we know him, the more endearing he is.”
animal sounds
A few hours before the inauguration, Henri Cosquer is moved. “It’s been thirty years since…
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