The application by the French government to make Chauvet Cave a UNESCO World Heritage site is now one step closer to becoming a reality.
The initiative to get the site this status has been led by the Ardèche Local Council, the Rhône-Alpes Region and the Association des Amis de la grotte Chauvet Pont-d'Arc. The initial aplpcation was made in January of this year and it's hoped that by summer 2014 the status will have been awarded.
Chauvet not only contains an unusually large collection of paintings and drawings of exceptional artistic and aesthetic quality, but also contains the oldest examples of figurative drawings known of humans, on the basis of its analysis of carbon-14 dating which places between 32 000 to 30 000 years BP.
New discoveries are constantly being found at the site in each season of research, and it's hoped that it won't be long before the seal of approval is given for it to gain UNESCO status. Lascaux cave already enjoys this status with its estimated age of 17,000, whilst Chauvet, being consideribly older and arguably more signifcant, does not.
By Spring 2015 a replica of Chauvet cave will have been completed, allowing visitors to experience an exact duplicate of the cave and its artwork, without any detrimental effect to the original site. The replica will live 7km from the original site and hopes to welcome around 400,000 visitors a year.
See all the current UNESCO world heritage sites here.
