Talk:Cave of Altamira

Replica in Germany

I read somewhere that the MAN replica was built by German technicians that had already built another for some German university. --Error 23:40, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Correct: For the "Deutsches Museum" at Munich. 195.4.207.186 (talk) 06:12, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Replica in Japan

Where is the replica in Japan? AxelBoldt 17:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Change article title? "Cave of Altamira" doesn't sound correct

Moving user Talk page discussion to the article's Talk page:

Recently the name of this article was changed to "Cave of Altamira" without discussion. Seems like "Altamira cave" is much more common. If one does a Google search, the former gets 740 results and the latter 24,400. I'd be inclined to go with the most common usage in English. "Cave of Altamira" just doesn't sound quite right in English.

Here is the rationale for the change, copied from my Talk page:

Apparently the issue is due to the fact that the World Heritage Site was listed as "Altamira Cave" by UNESCO; but this name has been changed to "Cave of Altamira", in "Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain", which is the full name of the property after having been recently extended. While English grammar would make both equivalent names possible, the original Spanish name is just "Cueva de Altamira" (with no possible alternate forms). This could be an explanation for this sudden adoption of an English name that is the most similar option."

Seems like we should go with common usage. I don't understand why UNESCO wording should govern this. TimidGuy (talk) 15:36, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Third Opinion I get 7780 ghits for "cave of altamira" and 25800 for "altamira cave"--I suspect someone either had a typo or dropped a digit. If there is clear documentation (WP:RS) that the formal, government-recognized name is "Cave of Altamira" then I agree that that should be the name of the article. However, given the common usage of the other name, "Altamira cave" should be both a redirect and an alternate name listed in the lead section. It appears clear that both names are in common usage, so the content of the article should reflect both, but the formal name should match the government's name for the site. Hoped that helped! Jclemens (talk) 17:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Jclemens. I just noticed that the UNESCO web site that uses Cave of Altamira also uses Altamira Cave.[1] I don't know that there's a formal, government-recognized name, but if there were, it would be "Cueva de Altamira." Seems like the issue would be how that's translated to English. TimidGuy (talk) 19:40, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Chronology

What on earth is meant HERE by years "ago". Why not unambiguously "BC"?. Moreover, the chronologies differ from one wiki to the other! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.4.207.186 (talk) 06:18, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Wait till you get a load of the even more puzzling "BP" (calibrated to 1950-01-01). Nevertheless, these are acceptable and even preferred formats, on Wikipedia and elsewhere (see WP:ERA). Consistency is preferred within an article, but I think even then editors may defer to source style since it can be tricky to accurately convert from one format to another. Also, indiscriminate changing from one style to another is discouraged. Richigi (talk) 06:28, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Removed text re: painters

Removed the following text: "Several painters were influenced by the Altamira cave paintings. Picasso is often quoted as having declared "after Altamira, all is decadence"; however, no source exists for this quote and there is no record of his ever visiting Altamira or any prehistoric cave."

The first sentence is unsupported. The reference for the second, Picasso-related sentence is an article specifically written to debunk same. Since it's debunked, I found its inclusion in the article confusing. Richigi (talk) 05:57, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

References

clean up

Hi! SuggestBot got me here. I neutralized a bit - removed the Sistine Chapel quote, which i did just recently at the Lascaux article. It struck me again during my research tour, when i created the Deer Cave article about a month ago. Such slogans don't serve WP.Wikirictor (talk) 00:24, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Human faces

The phrase "It also includes some sculptures of human faces that are not visitable in the real cave.[6]" is not containing the correct reference. In fact, as far as I see, [6] says nothing about human faces. I have just been there and seen no such faces. Can anyone with a better background than I have improve (possibly delete) this statemant and its reference? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.24.33.211 (talk) 19:20, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Latest absurdities

Hi! Haven't been here in a while. I found this in the lede: ...It is of the out most importance to state that the cave of Altamira was painted by the Basque People, who inhabited the whole area of the Bay of Biscay during more than 14 millennia... I am going to remove it.All the best Wikirictor 19:54, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Alcohol

These two sentences require clarification, though I assume that the reference is to the use of alcohol as a solvent for pigment rather than as a recreational drug: "Alcohol was not available at the time as far as we know. Still, it remains unexplained how the paintings in Altamira cave remained unaltered being wet." 850 C (talk) 19:19, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

It's unreferenced, & I've just removed it. There are plenty of other solvents. Do we know the roof was often wet? Johnbod (talk) 02:28, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Pathetic

Very likely the thing most readers want to know is how old these artworks are. They want to be told this in simple language that doesn’t require a degree in paleontology to understand. The article can’t seem to do this for some reason I don’t grasp. Instead more than half of the article is devoid to rubbishy trivia about which rock groups mentioned the caves in a song lyric or which brain-dead tv show refers to them in passing. TheScotch (talk) 06:30, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Dates

The introduction says the cave was discovered much earlier than the date given in the history section for the discovery of the paintings. This should be clarified.Kdammers (talk) 02:24, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

That was phrased a little confusingly; discovery of the cave predated "discovery" of the drawings by about a decade. Clarified. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 05:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)