Cavers Mailing List     № 124

dating cave inscriptions

Автор: Joep Orbons
Дата: 28 May 1995

Dear reader,

This mail contains a question concerning cave-inscriptions.
The town of Valkenburg in The Netherlands is in a limestone area.
The area has many subterranean limestone quarries and a few karst-
like caves.
In 1931 some inscriptions were found in one of these natural
caves. It is more suitable to call this structure an abri. These
inscriptions were photographed and a plaster copy was made. Sever-
al studies were published on what these inscription mean, how old
they are, etc.
In the 60th this abri collapsed and the inscription were thought
to have been lost forever.
Some two months ago one member of our studygroup rediscovered part
of the abri that survived the collapse, with the most important
inscriptions still accessible.
The date of these inscriptions was never established permanently.
it is either:
- Ahrensburg/Magdalenien culture
- Early medieval
- from around 1900 to attract more tourists.
Many (archaeological) scientists found evidence of either date,
but it was, up till now, impossible to declared a definite date,
because the originals were not accessible any more.
Now they are rediscovered, we found out that the old plaster
copies were not very accurate in important details.
As these inscriptions are the absolute only ones in all of The
Netherlands, we have no archaeologists who are specialists on this
subject, so that is why I'm mailing this question to you.
- Do you know somebody, or an institute, who is specialised in
cave-inscriptions.
- Can they study these inscriptions and put a definite date on
them.
If it helps, I can send a recent photograph of the inscriptions.
That might help in answering the question.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Many thanks,
Joep Orbons
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Joep Orbons
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  NL 6201 BP MAASTRICHT
  The Netherlands
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