Image: Illustration of Homme masque en Bison jourant de la flute Wellcome M0004767

Description: Cave of the Trois-Frères, Montesquieu-Avantès, Ariège, France. Sketch made by Henri Breuil (Un dessin de la grotte des Trois frères (Montesquieu-Avantès) Ariège, 1930), of an engraving in the cave room called the Sanctuary, representing a man masquerading as a bison, apparently lifting his left knee and holding in his mouth the extremity of some undefined device that looks like a small bow ; and two cows nearby it. The human figure has long been known as "the little shaman with a musical bow (or a flute)" ("little" because in the same room is a larger engraving of another masked figure, that of the iconic dancing shaman). These figures are part of a large engraved panel depicting many animals (only one human figure, this one here), in a confusing style which the simplified lines of this sketch do not convey. Breuil made this particular drawing to isolate these three, trying to make sense of the weird human figure. In 1996, Demouche et al. discovered that the human figue is not standing up but walking on his hands and knees and the image tilted 90° to the right, thus putting an end to the use of this picture to "prove" the existence of prehistoric music.
Title: Illustration of "Homme masque en Bison jouant de la flute"
Credit: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/25/9a/e2bf051cb40ea6d3dd656d5f9825.jpg Gallery: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/M0004767.html Wellcome Collection gallery (2018-03-30): https://wellcomecollection.org/works/m7kpt85m CC-BY-4.0
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License: CC BY 4.0
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