A LIFE magazine photo-essay brings 15 previously unpublished pictures of Lascaux by Ralph Morse, who was the first professional photographer to enter the site: "Inside Lascaux: Rare, Unpublished."
"LIFE re-opened its Paris bureau after the second World War ended, in the same offices we rented before the war" Morse recalls. "One day we get a message from New York about some cave that people have been talking about. We do a little research, and find out that even though the cave was discovered a few years before, no one's ever photographed the paintings. In fact, hardly anyone has ever been down there, except some guys who climb around in caves for fun. We know that the first thing we need is a generator to power our lights, but getting a generator anywhere after the war was almost impossible. We had to have people in London ship one over. Once it arrived, we were ready to go."
This is starting to seem like "cave art" week around here, but there have just been a lot of interesting links.
(via Savage Minds)