Spear thrower fragment sculpted as a musk ox
Courbet Cave, Penne, France
Antler
Length: 8.7 cms
The British Museum
Palart.455
This unique fragment of an unweighted spear thrower is sculpted and engraved to represent the head of a musk ox distinguished by the horns that curl around the animal’s face and the characteristic horny bridge that covers the forehead between them. This diagnostic feature acts as a crash pad to protect the skull when the bulls charge and clash heads during rutting. The hairy beard that hangs below the chin is indicated by finely engraved shading lines. The hook is positioned behind the head rather than being integrated with the animal body as in the spear throwers sculpted as horses also found in Courbet Cave.
Musk oxen are specially adapted to extreme cold and now live only around the Arctic Circle so this representation is a reflection of the very different steppe-tundra habitats that existed in southwest Europe during the coldest phases towards the end of the last Ice Age. The depiction of this impressive bovid in portable and cave art is relatively rare but always distinctive.
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