Ocher Digger

The Upper Languedoc is full of underground cavities dug by water infiltration in limestone cracks of the karstic massif dating from the Devonian, i.e. 400 million years ago.

Channeled through rugged geography, rainwater naturally turned into torrents that were quick to dig caves or chasms, opencast for some. Like the Giant Chasm of Cabrespine located between Cabardès and Minervois (Aude, Occitanie).

At the origin of this vast subterranean network, the waters of the Clamoux river. Now, the river seeps just down below the village of Cabrespine then passes peacefully into the chasm about 200 meters deep, next reappears ten kilometers away at the foot of the castles of Lastours. From its former bed carved in blue marble remains a thick ocher mat littered with concretions. This natural ocher whose color is due to the presence, in the clayey sand, of hematite - or iron hydroxide, was used as a pigment by our Paleolithic ancestors. Its extreme longevity ensured that of artworks which adorn the walls of the cavities in which they lived as well as that of the paintings decorating the Venus they carved.