Perforated baton with sculpted twist shaft
La Madeleine, Dordogne France
Antler
Length: 30.6 cms
The British Museum
Palart.311
This baton is decorated with deeply engraved drawings of horses on one side and a horse and ladder pattern on the opposite side. These appear to have been conceived as a unified and probably meaningful composition.
The horses are simply but accurately drawn and shown walking calmly in a line with the heads of those in the centre and at the back overlapping the tails of the horse in front. They are all female and their positioning reflects a natural scene in which a dominant mare leads a herd that forms in file behind her. The horses were drawn on the antler before the hole was made through the stomach of the leader. The line added below the perforation adds an emphasis that may suggest a pregnant belly.
The ladder pattern on the opposite is engraved so as to have a slightly raised relief. It was applied after the hole which is incorporated into the design. The horse at the broken end was added after the pattern. The forward position of its ears and the outstretched neck suggests the complete figure may have been running unlike the group on the other side.
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