| FRENCH CULT HEROINE |
 FRENCH CULT
HEROINEA French rock art controversy that unfolded through 1996 and early 1997 has received coverage in the European media. Emilia Masson, of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and based at an institute of semiotic studies, has proposed in 1994 that some rock paintings she claimed to have discovered in a small cave high in the French Alps were evidence of a cosmogonic (astrophysical) cult. The site is near the famous petroglyphs of Mont Bego, which have been studied by Professor Henry de Lumley since 1967. He had interpreted the site in 1976 as having been connected with a bull cult. Masson, who began her work in 1991, not only disagreed with him, her work implied that he had overlooked evidence, or failed to interpret it. De Lumley, in response, dismissed her interpretations, which are described as spontaneous: she would look at a rock face after being attracted by it as if by a magnet and would then see in it a face, 50 m high. This was her pointer to the presence of a sacred cave, which she then took two years to locate. De Lumley's team has recorded this site years ago, finding in it some petroglyphs, which Masson failed to find. She in turn accused him of not finding her paintings earlier, but when she returned to the site to demonstrate the point, she reported that the paintings had disappeared. They had been scraped off, vandalised, presumably to discredit her. But in the process of this, the vandals had exposed petroglyphs which had emerged beneath the paintings! Two independent 'experts' were then called in, who reported finding no trace of paint, petroglyphs or evidence of vandalism. Ms Masson then complained to the minister for culture, saying the report was part of a campaign to create obstacles for her 'research'. She also accuses the Academy of Sciences that it is delaying publication of her reply to Professor de Lumley, preventing her to exercise her right of reply. He had reported, together with fourteen colleagues, that the circular motifs she claims to be paint consist of an algal species, Trentepholia diffracta, and that there are in fact no petroglyphs present. Masson then challenged her opponents' right to examine the cave, claiming that she had an exclusive permit to study 'her' site. This is an all too familiar pattern. The first Palaeolithic rock art ever reported from the British Isles was published in one of the world's leading journals in 1981. An engraving was reported to have been inlaid with a green substance, 'probably malachite'. The green substance turned out to be algae, and the engraving was a perfectly natural groove. The point is not why these half-baked ideas are voiced, but how it is possible for them to appear in print, to receive serious consideration from a supposedly rigorous discipline. Presumably there is peer review along the way, so to account for these occurrences we have to assume that there is an adequate level of incompetence in academia to make them possible. It must be remembered that such affairs tend to be very wasteful, and if every von Däniken-style commentator in the world demanded the right of reply, archaeological publishing would deal with nothing but the outpourings of people with vivid imaginations. Robert G. Bednarik |
