Why mention this? Well, today marks the 75th anniversary of the cave’s discovery – on September 12 1940, by French teenager Marcel Ravidat, who was searching for his dog Robot, and stumbled upon something far more spectacular than an AWOL canine. With this comes a chance to revisit the old debate about how best to preserve the planet’s most important sites – and whether the very idea of crafting replicas of places of irreplaceable significance is a grand design or a fraud at the expense of paying customers.  Lascaux II – as the re-created Dordogne cave is known – was the first of its kind. But it started a trend – and one which made headlines earlier this year in another part of France.  Early visitors to the real Lascaux Cave Photo: GETTY  The Chauvet Cave was the lesson learned from the damage done to the original Lascaux by naive admiration. Hidden in a limestone cliff above the Gorges de l’Ardeche, in the south-easterly Ardeche department, it was found in December 1994 by three cavers – among them Jean-Marie Chauvet, who lent it his name. Unlike Lascaux, it was never opened to outside eyes – partly because, if anything, it is more special than its sibling. Here are the Picassos of the Prehistoric world, expert minds which forged incredible renditions of the beasts that stalked the Europe of the Stone Age – not just horses and deer, but bison, lions, rhinos. These images are not just more strikingly formed than their Dordogne colleagues, they are seemingly twice their age. They may be 32,000 years old.  But then, comparisons between Lascaux and Chauvet are hard to make – because almost no-one has glimpsed the latter. Instead, April this year saw the launch of what might pithily be described as ‘Faux Chauvet’ – the largest cave replica ever built. Ten times bigger than the Lascaux model, it took eight years to construct at a cost of €50 million (£37m) – every “brushstroke” reproduced via high-tech trickery and digital technology.  Reactions to the arrival of this halfway house have been varied. Visiting for this publication, Anthony Peregrine was effusive in his praise. “I stood and gaped,” he wrote. “The whole is slightly less than half the size of a football pitch but is so packed with geo-detail that it seems, if not bigger, then infinitely more intense.” You can also see, he said, “a higher proportion of truly savage, killer beasts – bears, mammoths, rhinos, big cats – than is usual in cave paintings normally more concerned with horses, bulls and reindeer. They rock with vitality. They’re absolutely in action. Two rhinos fight. Others gallop.”  'Faux Chauvet' is the largest cave replica ever built Photo: GETTY  Art critic Jonathan Jones, writing in The Guardian, was less enthralled. In a passionately argued piece, he called the Chauvet replica “patronising nonsense”, arguing that “no art lover wants to see a replica Rembrandt, a fake Freud or a simulacra of Seurat. Why then is it considered perfectly reasonable to offer fake Ice Age art as a cultural attraction?”  His first point is undeniable – what would be the point of going to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa if what you were staring at was a copy of no more worth than the poster you can buy in the gift shop for €10? But Ice Age art is surely different – not least because to examine it at close quarters is to destroy it. The deterioration of Lascaux has proved that. The choice between seeing the real thing and being a part of its ruin simply by standing next to it – or enjoying a detailed state-of-the-art reproduction – is surely no choice at all. And while I have not returned to Lascaux since my initial visit, I am sure the version of it which so delighted me as an impressionable adolescent would do so again in adulthood.  Besides, the discussion has already been held, and a conclusion reached. Replicas of fragile sites will become more and more common. Another clear example is KV62 – the priceless shard of Egypt’s past which is better known as the tomb of Tutankhamun. The designated resting place of the teenage pharaoh – in the Valley of the Kings – has been visited by millions since Howard Carter prised it open in 1922. And it has suffered. It was closed for restoration between 2010 and 2014 – but as of May last year, tourists have been able to explore a full re-creation of the chamber, built close by, and exact in every detail. The proper tomb has since reopened, but it is not hard to envisage the day when it is closed for good – with its doppelganger taking on the workload. That day will be soon.  Could tourists one day be sent to a fake Machu Picchu Photo: AP/FOTOLIA  Is this a bad thing if it ensures that a crucial fragment of the planet’s history survives, albeit away from the public gaze? Or is this part of a rising tide which ends with one giant Las Vegas-style theme park where the world comes to wander around the official imitations of Machu Picchu, the Sistine Chapel, Pompeii and Petra? One thing is for certain – Lascaux, Chauvet and KV62 are the start of a process, not isolated incidents.
The real Lascaux Cave, discovered 75 years ago today, has been off-limits for decades. So is there any point visiting a replica?