These are two exceptional sites from Prehistory. The Cro-Magnon shelter and the Sorcerer's cave, located in Les Eyzies in Dordogne, and both classified as Historic Monuments and included on the UNESCO World Heritage list, were purchased on Tuesday by the State, announces the prefecture of Nouvelle-Aquitaine this Thursday in a press release.
These two sites were purchased by a prehistory enthusiast around ten years ago: Jean-Max Touron. The latter, already the owner of 22 sites, 14 of which are open to visitors, has given itself the mission of promoting them. However, such heritage remains heavy to maintain, and the owner wanted to part with, five years ago, the Cro-Magnon shelter and the Sorcerer's cave, put up for sale at the price of 2 .2 million euros. The amount of the final transaction remains secret, but according to information from France Bleu Périgord, it would have been negotiated below the two million euros mark.
The emblematic place of the discovery of Cro-Magnon skeletons
Contacted by 20 Minutes in 2023, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Drac) confirmed that the State then wished to acquire these sites which are part of the string of “caves and prehistoric sites in the Vézère valley”. “The estimation of caves is particularly difficult to establish given their specificity, the scientific and symbolic issues surrounding these sites and the particular constraints attached to the protections to which they are subject. »
The Cro-Magnon shelter is quite simply the emblematic place of the discovery of the skeletons which gave the name to the first modern man, Cro-Magnon Man, that is to say A wise man. The discovery of the shelter was made in 1868, during work related to the railway. The skeletons were then transferred to the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. The Sorcerer's Cave, in Saint-Cirq, contains rock sculptures unique in the world: geometric motifs, animals and human representations, including a complete human figure which gives it its name Sorcerer's Cave.
“The Cro-Magnon shelter and the Sorcerer's cave thus join the deposits of Prehistory and the decorated caves, many of which belong to the State (Le Moustier, La Micoque, La Ferrassie, Laugerie-Haute, Font-de-Gaume , Cap-Blanc, Combarelles, etc.)”, welcomes the prefecture.
Their assignment to the Center for National Monuments, in charge of several prehistoric sites in the Vézère valley, “makes it possible to guarantee the preservation, conservation and enhancement of these internationally renowned sites and their opening to the public. »
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