{"id":"PEUR2026-009","label":"Cuina Turcului decorated antler plaque","people_or_site":"Cuina Turcului rockshelter (Epipalaeolithic)","country_current":"Romania","historic_region":"Iron Gates / Danube Gorges; Cuina Turcului rockshelter, Dubova, Mehedinti","macroregion":"Europe / Danube Gorges","local_name":"","source_term":"adornment (perforated antler plaque)","source_language":"English","object_description":"A flat red-deer antler plaque (inv. 712), broken at the proximal end where four transverse incisions survive; the inferior surface scraped smooth, the superior face carrying nine deep parallel oblique sawn lines of asymmetric V-shaped profile, and a distal perforation made by unifacial rotation. At least 67 x 23 mm (aspect 2.97 or more), derived from the published scale bar; thickness unpublished. Excavated 1969, trench Cas.S at 5.50 m, hearth nearby.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"margarit2020_cuina_turcului","source_type":"archaeological_report","source_url":"https://cercetari-arheologice.ro/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CercetariArheologice_27-art.02-M.Margarit_compressed.pdf","page_or_plate":"2020: p. 57, Fig. 7.6-7.10, Tab. 4 id. 4; 2021: p. 785, Fig. 3i-m; 2018: Fig. 21e-f","map_confidence":"low_medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Cuina Turcului rockshelter at the foot of Ciucaru Mare above the Danube near Dubova (Mehedinti); the site was flooded by the Iron Gates I reservoir in 1970, so the coordinate is a locality anchor, not a visitable point.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In the last centuries of the Ice Age, someone at Cuina Turcului - a rockshelter camp under the cliffs of the Danube's Iron Gates gorge - scraped a strip of red-deer antler flat, sawed nine deep slanting lines across its face, and bored a hole through one end. The hole did not stay round: it wore open into a smooth-walled notch at the edge, the kind of mark a cord leaves. The broken plaque is at least a finger's length and three times longer than it is wide, proportions in the range of the Magdalenian bramaderas far to the west and nothing like the squat bone pendant that survives beside it in the collection. Whether it ever sounded turns on a single measurement no one has published: how thick it is.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"object","date_display":"c. 12,700–11,000 cal BC","date_qualification":"","date_basis":"stratigraphic","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"margarit2020_cuina_turcului, Tab. 4 id. 4 and printed p. 63 chronology","sources":[{"citation":"Monica Mărgărit, Adina Boroneanț and Clive Bonsall, 'Prehistoric adornments from Cuina Turcului,' Cercetări Arheologice 27 (2020): 45-71, at p. 57, fig. 7.6-7.10, table 4; Mărgărit, Boroneanț and Bonsall, Open Archaeology 7 (2021), p. 785, fig. 3i-m; Mărgărit, Radu, Boroneanț and Bonsall, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 10 (2018)","url":"https://cercetari-arheologice.ro/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CercetariArheologice_27-art.02-M.Margarit_compressed.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20220313155503/https://cercetari-arheologice.ro/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CercetariArheologice_27-art.02-M.Margarit_compressed.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Monica Mărgărit, Adina Boroneanț and Clive Bonsall, 'Prehistoric adornments from Cuina Turcului,' Cercetări Arheologice 27 (2020): 45-71, at p. 57, fig. 7.6-7.10, table 4; Mărgărit, Boroneanț and Bonsall, Open Archaeology 7 (2021), p. 785, fig. 3i-m; Mărgărit, Radu, Boroneanț and Bonsall, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 10 (2018)","source_display":"Monica Mărgărit, Adina Boroneanț and Clive Bonsall, 'Prehistoric adornments from Cuina Turcului,' Cercetări Arheologice 27 (2020): 45-71, at p. 57, fig. 7.6-7.10, table 4; Mărgărit, Boroneanț and Bonsall, Open Archaeology 7 (2021), p. 785, fig. 3i-m; Mărgărit, Radu, Boroneanț and Bonsall, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 10 (2018)","date_citation_display":"Tab. 4 id. 4 and printed p. 63 chronology","object_display":"A flat red-deer antler plaque (inv. 712), broken at the proximal end where four transverse incisions survive; the inferior surface scraped smooth, the superior face carrying nine deep parallel oblique sawn lines of asymmetric V-shaped profile, and a distal perforation made by unifacial rotation. At least 67 x 23 mm (aspect 2.97 or more), derived from the published scale bar; thickness unpublished. Excavated 1969, trench Cas.S at 5.50 m, hearth nearby.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"low to medium","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"cuina turcului","display_name":"Cuina Turcului decorated antler plaque","image":{"full":"assets/objects/PEUR2026-009_margarit2020_fig7_6_antler.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/PEUR2026-009_margarit2020_fig7_6_antler_thumb.jpg","alt":"Cuina Turcului antler plaque (inv. 712), with a weathered tan surface, a notched broken end and a tapered opposite end.","credit":"M. Mărgărit, A. Boroneanț & C. Bonsall, Cercetări Arheologice 27 (2020), Fig. 7.6","license":"CC BY-NC 4.0 (Cercetări Arheologice 27, 2020)","source_page":"https://cercetari-arheologice.ro/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CercetariArheologice_27-art.02-M.Margarit_compressed.pdf","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"The perforated, decorated antler plaque from Cuina Turcului (inv. 712)."},"slug":"peur2026-009-cuina-turcului-rockshelter-epipalaeolithic"}