The oldest known work of art from Wales
Kendrick’s Cave, Conwy, Wales
Bone
Length: 13.8 cms
The British Museum
1959.1203.1
The horse chin from Kendrick’s Cave is decorated with panels of carefully engraved zigzags on its underside. It is unique and has no apparent utilitarian function although it may have been suspended for wear. The site from which it comes produced no stone tools or occupation debris but did contain perforated bear and deer teeth, as well as notched bones coloured with red ochre. These unusual objects may have been associated with human burials in a site positioned on the Great Orme Head, a prominent landmark in the area. The burials and objects are reminiscent of those discovered at Duruthy in the western Pyrenees where horse sculptures were placed on top of broken fragments of horse jaws between deliberately positioned horse skulls in a cave that also contained human burials.