SECRETS OF EARTH AND SEA
CHAPTER I
THE EARLIEST PICTURE IN THE WORLD
IN Figs. 1 and 2 on the next page a cylindrical piece of the antler of a red deer is represented of half the natural size. On it are carved by in-sunk lines certain representations of animals. It was found in the cavern of Lortet, near Lourdes, in the department of the Hautes Pyrénées, in the south of France, together with many other remains of prehistoric man. This cavern was excavated and all its contents of human origin carefully preserved by M. Edouard Piette in 1873 and the following years. Drawings of this and other remarkable carved pieces of bone and antler, many in the form of harpoon heads, and of small chipped flint implements, all found in this cave, were published by him. [1] He excavated also several other caverns with great care, and his collections were bequeathed by him on his death to the great Museum of National Archæology at St. Germain, near Paris, where I have had the advantage of studying them.
Figs. 1 and 2.–Engraved cylinder of red-deer's antler, from the Azilian (Elapho-Tarandian) horizon of the cavern of Lortet. Drawn of a little more than half the actual size of the specimen.