Treasure.

In September 12, 1940, four boys and their dog set out on an adventure in Dordogne. The boys - Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel and Simon Coencas – where intrigued by an old legend about a tunnel running under the Vezere River linking the old Castel of Montignac to the Manor of Lascaux. According to the legend, this tunnel would lead to a second tunnel and a treasure hidden deep in the woods of Montignac.

As they walked through the woods the little dog, Robot, ran ahead toward a deep depression in the ground covered with overgrowth and began sniffing the sunken hole. The depression had originally been created by an uprooted tree. The boys hurried to catch up with Robot. When they saw the deep hole, they immediately thought it might lead them to the legendary tunnel and the hidden treasure.

After trying to determine the depth of the hole by tossing rocks in the opening and listening for contact with the bottom, they decided to explore it. They enlarged the opening by removing a few stones around the edges with their penknives. Then, each one of the four boys slid through the hole in turn, along a semi-vertical shaft embedded with stalagmites down fifteen meters to a dark underground chamber. “The descent was terrifying,” recalled Jacques Marsal who was just fourteen years old at the time, the youngest of the four boys. Inside the chamber they used their oil lantern to look around shining it on the walls and ceiling.


Enter the cave at the Lascaux site.