The Bullroarer Atlas

No. EUROPE-003

La Vache cave

France · Magdalenian final, Ariege · Europe · Pyrenees

Sacred / spirit

Archaeological datec. 13,000 BC
Engraved reindeer-antler blade with a leaping horse among branching strokes, La Vache, Ariège.
Plate I. Engraved reindeer-antler blade with a leaping horse among branching strokes, La Vache, Ariège. Image source
Reverse face of the La Vache blade, engraved with rows of oblique strokes along a central line.
Plate II. Reverse face of the La Vache blade, engraved with rows of oblique strokes along a central line. Image source
Close view of the horse engraved at full stretch on the La Vache blade.
Plate III. Close view of the horse engraved at full stretch on the La Vache blade. Image source
Hardy’s 1891 plate no. 16, an elongated incised bone piece with a central hole.
Plate IV. Representative — not this record’s object. French Paleolithic bullroarers on a classic plate. Public domain · Image source

rhombe

French for "rhombus," the standard French term for a bullroarer — a flat blade whirled on a cord.

Etymology. French scholarly label from Greek rhombos, applied to whirled prehistoric bullroarers.

From the final-Magdalenian deposits of the cave of La Vache, at Alliat in the Ariège, the excavations of Romain Robert and Romain Gailli yielded a series of decorated bullroarers of bone and antler — among them pieces nicknamed for their engravings, the "two reindeer" and the "jumping horse." Barandiarán assigns three complete pieces to the bullroarer type, alongside plainer and broken fragments. Nougier and Robert grouped many of the carved strips as pendants, and the catalogue of the Musée d'Archéologie nationale by Chauvière and Delporte files the elongated plaques among "ellipsoids" and "pendants"; Barandiarán picks the bullroarers out from among them. The deposits belong to the reindeer- and ibex-hunters who wintered here some fifteen thousand years ago and almost certainly painted the nearby cave of Niaux, across the valley.

las que justamente consideran bramaderas (las ‘de los dos renos’, ‘del caballo saltando’ etc)

those they rightly regard as bullroarers (the ones 'of the two reindeer', 'of the jumping horse', etc.)

Barandiarán Maestu 2015, Kobie (BAI nº6):154, n.10

Particulars

Object
Three complete decorated bone blades assigned to the bullroarer type, plus plainer and broken fragments (incl. 'rhombe of the two reindeer', 'jumping horse rhombe'); Robert/Gailli excavations. The 'jumping horse' piece is inventory 83351: a reindeer-antler blade 16.3 × 2 × 0.7 cm bearing red hematite and engraved horse and fish imagery, excavated in Salle Monique, level 4, square 208, Upper Magdalenian.
Function
Whirled-cord aerophone.

Source

L.-R. Nougier and R. Robert, Préhistoire Ariégeoise 25 (1970), 29 (1974) and 33 (1978); F.-X. Chauvière and H. Delporte, 'Ellipsoïdes,' and H. Delporte et al., 'Pendeloques,' in J. Clottes and H. Delporte (dir.), La Grotte de La Vache II (2003), pp. 384-394; I. Barandiarán Maestu, Kobie BAI 6 (2015), p. 154 n. 10

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Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.