Fig. 11.—Mammoth Carving from the Collection of M. Lartet.
Fig. 12.—Mammoth Carving from the Collection of M. Lartet.
It is interesting to compare the Lenape Stone with the mammoth carvings of the cave-men of Europe, of which we here give the series. None of these outlines equal the Lenape drawing in realistic spirit except, perhaps (fig. 10) the most remarkable of them all, the celebrated La Madeleine carving. It is engraved upon mammoth ivory and was discovered in 1864 in the cave of La Madeleine, Perigord, France, by M. Louis Lartet. It was broken into five fragments, and like the carving on the Lenape Stone, which it singularly resembles in general position, and in the indecisive drawing of the back and tail, unmistakably represents the mammoth. The mammoth scratching his side (fig. 11), and the very indistinct head (fig. 12), carved on opposite sides of a bone plate, are from the Edouard Lartet collection. M. Louis Lartet, brother of the former, in his description of the drawings in the "Matériaux pour l'histoire primitive de l'homme," vol. ix., p. 33, thinks that "the primitive artist to whom these rude but sufficiently faithful representations are due, and who changed his mind several times when sketching, had, without doubt, the living model before his eyes, and was disturbed in his work by the movements of the animal."
Fig. 13.—Mammoth Dagger-hilt from the Rock Shelter of Bruniquel.
Fig. 14.—
Head of Mammoth
from the cave of
Laugerie Basse.
Figure 13, is the mammoth dagger-hilt carved in deer horn, in the collection of M. Peccadeau de l'Isle. It was discovered in the rock shelter of Bruniquel (Tarne et Garonne), France. Here, to avoid breakage probably, the muzzle has been greatly exaggerated and the shape of the trunk and position of the tusks have been considerably departed from.