Cave Paintings and Military Operations in Spain

Abstract

WHILE anxiety was felt generally throughout the world as to the fate which was likely to befall the artistic treasures of Spain until reassurance was given by Sir Frederic Kenyon's visit of inspection to the scene of hostilities, archæologists were no less perturbed at the thought of the damage which might be done to the priceless palæolithic paintings of the caves of northern and eastern Spain, both within the zones of operations. In the current number of L'Anthropologie (47, 5–6) a note is published from the Abbé Breuil to M. R. Verneau, in which it is stated that Prof. H. Obermaier has been informed by a journalist that the famous cave of Altamira, in the neighbourhood of Santander, the best known and most important of the caves, had suffered no serious injury, although it had given shelter to some hundreds of refugees and the house of the guide had been occupied by an officer of the Red staff. Alcade del Rio also is informed that the same is true of the other caves with paintings of the Cantabrian Pyrenees. On the other hand, M. Verneau is told that the greater part of the archæological collection formed by Sen. Perez de Barradas and housed in the Municipal Museum of Madrid, had been broken up. News of the fate of the important paintings in the province of Teruel in eastern Spain will be awaited with no little anxiety.