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The Skull Chamber in the Chauvet Cave

En Route Towards a Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2022

Yann-Pierre Montelle
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Abstract

A cave bear skull from the Upper Paleolithic is carefully positioned on a modified block in the Skull Chamber of Chauvet Cave. The Skull Chamber, as the culmination of a speleological parcours, has apparently been strategically modified in order to increase its performative potential — an early architectural attempt to reconfigure a space en route towards a theatre.

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Article
Information
TDR , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , June 2022 , pp. 10 - 26
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press for Tisch School of the Arts/NYU

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