Staff of office found at Lafaye.
Figure 34.
Staff of office in reindeer antler, with a horse engraved on it, found at Thayngen.
These staves, of which hundreds have now been found, were picked up in many different places, including the Goyet Cave in Belgium, the caves of Périgord and Charente, and the Veyrier Station in Savoy. At Thayngen, as many as twenty-three were found, all pierced with one hole only.[22] We must not omit to mention amongst these relies of ages gone by, one of the most interesting found in 1887 at Montgaudier (Charente) ([Fig. 35]), which bears on one side a representation of two seals, and on the other of two eels, the former of which especially are executed with a truth to form, boldness of execution, and delicacy of touch which are positively astonishing when we remember that the artist (we cannot refuse him this title) bad no tools at his disposal but a few miserable flints or roughly pointed bones. The hinder limbs, so strangely placed in amphibia, are faithfully rendered; each paw has its five toes, the texture of the skin can be made out, the head is delicately modelled; the muzzle with its whiskers, the eye, the orifice of the ear, all testify to real skill. The existence of the seal in the Quaternary epoch in the south of France was not known until quite recently, when Mr. Hardy found in a cave near Périgueux the remains of a seal (Phoca grœnlandica), associated with quite an arctic fauna. In part at least therefore of the Quaternary period, very great cold must have prevailed in Périgord.[23]
With this staff of office were picked up some pieces of ivory covered with geometrical designs, engraved with some sharp implement, stilettos, bone needles, knives, flint scrapers, and, stranger still, the remains of the cave-lion, the cave-hyena, and the Rhinoceros tichorhinus, all contemporaries of the most ancient Quaternary fauna.
Figure 35.
Staff of office found at Montgaudier.