Cosquer Cave (Cosquer Méditerranée), Marseille

About Cosquer Cave

Cosquer Cave lies in the Calanque de Morgiou in the Calanques massif, on Marseille's southern edge. In the Ice Age the sea was a hundred metres lower and the shore several kilometres further south, so people walked into the cave. Then the sea rose, and today the entrance is hidden 37 metres down, with a 175-metre underwater tunnel leading to the dry chambers.

The entrance was found in 1985 by Henri Cosquer, a diver from Cassis, but the paintings were only discovered in 1991, when explorers spotted a handprint on the wall. Leading specialists in prehistoric art, Jean Clottes and Jean Courtin, studied the cave. Today it's closed, and its paintings can be seen in an exact replica.

What to see

• Hand stencils — 65 'handprints' 27,000 years old.
• Horses and bison — the animals of Ice Age Europe.
• Seals and great auks — rare sea subjects.
• The underground lake — flooded chambers in the replica.
• The climate gallery — how the sea drowned the coast.
• Port views — from the museum at the harbour mouth.

Stone Age paintings

Four-fifths of the cave is flooded and the art there has gone, but the dry chambers hold around 500 images from two periods. The oldest, about 27,000 years old, are 65 hand stencils in black and red: people pressed a hand to the wall and blew pigment around it.

The later images, about 19,000 years old, show 177 animals: horses, ibex, deer, bison and aurochs. But Cosquer's great speciality is sea creatures, almost absent from other caves: seals, great auks, jellyfish and fish. There are human figures too, including a motif known from Lascaux.

The Cosquer Méditerranée replica

In 2022 the Cosquer Méditerranée museum opened in Marseille's port, in the Villa Méditerranée building at the harbour mouth: a life-size replica of the cave. The paintings, vaults and chambers were recreated from precise 3D scans, and part of the 'flooded' cave is shown with water, as in reality.

After the cave, visitors pass through an exhibition on Ice Age life, the animals that lived on the shores of Provence and how the rising sea reshaped the coast. It includes models of Ice Age animals.

The cave and the Calanques

The real cave is in Calanques National Park, near Cap Morgiou. Its entrance is closely protected and diving there is banned: it's dangerous and could damage the art. From a boat running along the Calanques from the Old Port, you can see the cliffs of Cap Morgiou that hide the entrance.

Cosquer Cave is one of the very few places on the Mediterranean coast with art this ancient, and it shows how much the shoreline has changed over the last twenty thousand years.

Tips for your visit

Allow an hour and a half to two hours for the museum. It's a good choice on a rainy or windy day when boats to the Calanques aren't running.

The museum pairs easily with La Major cathedral and a walk to the Old Port, and you can see the coves themselves on a boat to the Calanques.

The museum is pushchair-accessible. Children enjoy the cave tour, but it's dark and hushed inside, so warn little ones beforehand.

Nearby and on the way

44

Marseille Cathedral

Marseille, France

40 min · Free · 8 min walk

Yes — add to my route: Marseille Cathedral

42

Old Port

Marseille, France

1 h 30 min · Free · 15 min walk

Yes — add to my route: Old Port

50

Notre-Dame de la Garde

Marseille, France

1 h · Free · 30 min walk

Yes — add to my route: Notre-Dame de la Garde

How to do it right

• Timed ticket, online.
• Good for rain and wind.
• The real cave is closed.
• MuCEM is next door.

Questions