Pendant wiht geometric decoration
La Garma-Galeria Inferior, Ribamontán al Monte, Cantabria.
Length: 6.64 cms
Museo de Prehistoria y Arqueología de Cantabria, Santander
GI-572/573/574
The incised lines on this bone form profuse patterns that vary on opposite sides and edges. Before the pattern was applied, a piece of rib was prepared by scraping. On one face faint oblique incisions precede the deeper engraving of the off-centre V shaped pattern running the length of the piece and the marking of the edges. On the opposite side, zigzags formed by groups of oblique incisions applied in groups of three occupy the centre space. The top of the piece has a perforation broken in ancient times from which it would have been suspended.
The motifs on this piece are also known from other sites in Cantabria and the western Pyrenees during a period roughly 14,000 years ago. Intriquingly, a similarly decorated piece of rib without a surviving perforation is also known from Gough’s Cave, Somerset, England.
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