The last of four boys who discovered the Lascaux cave paintings, a stunning display of prehistoric art in southwest France, will visit a new replica of the site Saturday.<\/p>\n
Simon Coencas, now 89, will join President Francois Hollande for the inauguration of the display at a visitors’ centre in Montignac, a village at the foot of the hills where he discovered the cave as a teenager.<\/p>\n
More than seven decades after he got his first look at the site, Coencas will — health permitting — revisit a complete copy of the caves.<\/p>\n
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The tale of how he and three friends discovered the site, in the Dordogne region in southwestern France, is like something out of a children’s adventure book.<\/p>\n
On September 14, 1940, with World War II raging and the Nazis already in Paris, a friend of Coencas enlisted him and the other boys to explore a hole in the ground in the hills above the village that his dog had found a few days earlier.<\/p>\n
One of the boys had to carve out a space with his knife so they could get into the cave and continue their search by the light of a paraffin lamp.<\/p>\n
“With my pals, we climbed down to explore a hole, we advanced bit by bit and at some point we came up upon the chamber of the bulls,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n
It was by that light that they first saw the paintings: horses, bulls and deer…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n