Spain: Cave of Altamira

On Monday I got three postcards: one from Spain, my first card from Ghana and one from Brazil.

The card from Spain shows the painting of the Large Bison at the Cave of Altamira in Cantabria. The Cave of Altamira was discovered in 1879 and is thus one of the first places were cave paintings were found. Its entrance was sealed by rocks around 13000 years ago and thus the paintings are particularly well preserved, due to the isolation from external climatic influences. When the cave was discovered the most experts did not believe prehistoric man had the intellectual capacity to produce any kind of artistic expression and claimed that the paintings would be a forgery. Today their origin from the Paleolithic period is proved and they are considered to be the earliest accomplished art of human kind. There are replicas of the cave in the National Museum and Research Centre of Altamira, in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain in Madrid, in the Deutsches Museum in Munich and in Japan. The actual cave is closed to visitors. The Cave of Altamira is since 1985 on the UNESCO World Heritage List, in 2008 other decorated caves in the region were added.

Stamp:
25 years National Transplantation Organisation (issued 16-01-2015)

Thank You very much Jordi!