MUS2026-241 - archaeological find
El Cierro perforated plaque
Spain - Asturias - Ribadesella - Fresno (Fresnu) - Europe
Function not recorded Candidate only
Source term: espatula-bramadera (museum label)
bramadera: Spanish bullroarer; espatula: spatula, the museum's paired term for this flat bone form.
A flat, worked plaque from Cueva del Cierro, rounded at one end and pierced near it, hangs in the Asturias museum under a label that names two functions at once: espátula-bramadera, spatula-bullroarer. Older reports from a Lower Magdalenian layer in the same cave describe a polished, perforated rib and a separate perforated shaft among the site's ornaments, either of which could be this very piece. No publication ties the descriptions to this accession, or says what the plaque is made from, so the object's shape is certain and almost everything else about it is not.
- Object
- A flat, elongated worked plaque, rounded and single-perforated near its upper end and tapering slightly toward the other, shown in the museum's accession photograph against a centimetre scale bar; no publication confirms what material it is worked from.
- Function
- Not recorded.
- Map confidence
- low - Ribadesella / Sella-valley area anchor near Fresno (Fresnu), on the west bank of the Sella, close to Cueva de Tito Bustillo; no published cave-mouth coordinate was recovered, so this pins the immediate area rather than the cave entrance.
- Source location
Page references
Museum exhibition PDF p. 36; Alvarez-Alonso and de Andres-Herrero 2012, pp. 402, 406-407