EUROPE-003 - secondary catalog
La Vache cave
France - Magdalenian final, Ariege - Europe - Pyrenees
Sacred / spirit
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. (medium confidence)
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 bone blades that have been read as bullroarers — 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. The identification is not settled: Nougier and Robert described the carved bone strips as pendants, and the catalogue of the Musée d'Archéologie nationale by Chauvière and Delporte sorts them among "ellipsoids" and "pendants," so which of these elongated bone plaques were actually whirled on a cord remains undecided. 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):152, n.10
- 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 (POP/Joconde 50010009162): 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.
- Map confidence
- medium - approximate territory centroid (mining 2026)
- Source location
- p.152
- Spirit voice