Secrets of Earth and Sea

by Sir E. Ray Lankester

Fig. 5.—Restoration (or completion) of the engraving on the Lortet antler, as now (1919) suggested by the writer (E. R. L.).

The "printed-off," or "unrolled," or "developed" picture given in Fig. 3 is an exact reproduction of a copy of the cast made and preserved in the Museum of National Antiquities at St. Germain, for which I am indebted to my friend M. Salomon Reinach, the distinguished archæologist who is the director of that museum. It is reproduced here, a little larger than half the size of the original, as are the representations of the carved cylinder itself (Figs. 1 and 2). In Fig. 4 we have my attempt to restore the damaged portions of the design and to present it as it was when the Palæolithic man completed it some 20,000 years ago.

I will return to the question of the correctness of this restoration, but before doing so I wish to mention some extremely interesting points as to the probable use of the cylinder of stag's antler and the purpose of the carving around its axis. In the first place, this and a few other of the pieces of carving of the post-Glacial period were certainly the work of highly gifted and practised artists. It is obvious that this work is far superior both in conception and execution to the more or less clever, often grotesque, carvings and paintings made by modern savages or simple pastoral folk. There is no reason to suppose that the Cromagnards, or men of the post-Glacial or Reindeer period of West Europe, differed from modern races in being universally gifted with artistic capacity. This engraving of three stags is almost certainly the work of a man who belonged to a family or guild of picture-makers who had cultivated such work for centuries and handed it on from master to apprentice. This design is probably one which had been perfected by many succeeding observers and draughtsmen. Its sureness of line and vivacity of movement are not the outcome of the sudden inspiration of an untutored savage, but are the result of the growth, cultivation, and development of artistic perception and the power of artistic execution in successive generations.

It seems in the highest degree improbable, if not impossible, that so excellent a drawing as this should have been cut on the cylindrical piece of antler by an engraver who never saw the flat or rolled-off impress of his design. One is driven to the conclusion that he must, as he worked on the bone, have taken an impress of the growing picture from time to time, using probably animal fat and charcoal as an "ink" and printing on to a piece of prepared skin or on to a birch-bark cloth. How otherwise could he have made his engraving so truly that when, ages afterwards, we print it off the cylinder, we are astonished and delighted by its perfection of design and execution? If this be once admitted—namely, that the artist tested and checked his work by printing it off as he proceeded with it—we gain what appears to me to be the probable solution of the question which has been largely debated, "For what were these carved cylinders or rods used?" Those which are simple cylindrical rods, such as the present one, must be distinguished from others which have one or more circular holes bored in them and others which are curiously bent at an angle. Such specimens are often carved with small unimportant ornament, not requiring development or printing. They as well as the present class have been spoken of as "wands of authority" and "sceptres"; some are considered to be arrow straighteners; others have been supposed to be "divining rods" or "rods of witchcraft"; whilst one of those discovered by M. Piette (others similar to it are known) has been regarded as a "lance thrower" or "propulsor" (such as modern primitive races use), having a notch at one end upon which the lance to be thrown is made to rest. The latest suggestion as to these notch-and-hook-bearing rods, is that they are large crochet hooks used in making nets. It has also been suggested that some of these carved rods were used as "fasteners" of the skins used as clothing.

I venture to suggest that the elaborately carved cylinder which we are considering and others bearing similar carvings, which only show up when a printing of them is taken, were used by the men who made them for this very same "printing" as an end in itself. The picture could be thus impressed on skins, birch bark, and other material. This race was thoroughly familiar with the use of paint formed by mixing grease with charcoal (to produce black), red ochre (to produce red), yellow ochre (to produce yellow), and some preparation of limestone or chalk (to produce white). Coloured pictures representing animals of the chase, coloured with red, yellow, white, and black and outlined by engraving, have been discovered on the rock walls of the caves used by them. Such pictures are found of relatively early as well as of late date within the post-Glacial Palæolithic period (see Chapter III). The rock picture of a single animal is usually from two to five feet long. People who could make those coloured designs and who could draw and compose so admirably as the author of the "Three Red Deer" would have desired to "roll off" and to possess printings of their favourite representations of animal life, whilst we must admit that their skill and ingenuity was assuredly equal to the task of so printing them. If this carving of the "Three Red Deer" were never printed it could not have been executed in the first place, nor seen and admired when completed. If even only half a dozen or a dozen impressions were taken from it for ornamenting the skins or other material used by a chief, or a wizard, or a woman, its production becomes intelligible. It is true that there is nothing known as to the use of such printing from a cylinder among existing primitive people, but it is known in very early times (4500 B.C.), since cylindrical seals were used by the Babylonians. Elaborately grooved blocks used for printing on cloth are known from Fiji and Samoa, and the mere practice of printing on to a flat surface is common enough among savage races in regard to the human hand, impressions or prints of which obtained by the use of a greasy pigment are found upon rocks or stones. Sometimes prints of the hand or fingers are taken in clay.

We must not, however, forget that the primary purpose of savage and primitive mankind in making images or engravings of animals is that of influencing the animals by witchcraft or magic, as has been urged by Reinach. From such magic-working drawings the art of savages has gradually developed just as religious figures and designs have been the initial motive of historic European art.

It seems in any case fairly certain that the artist who engraved our picture of the three deer on to the stag's antler must have worked from and copied a completed flat drawing, and probably printed it in some way on to the prepared antler before engraving its lines thereon and also checked the work, as he proceeded, by successive trial printings or "proofs" on to a flat surface. It is possible though it does not seem very probable, that the drawing was thus committed to perpetual invisibility on a cylindrical rod—for the purpose of exercising "magic" with that rod. It seems to me that the Cromagnard owner of the rod would have wished to see "what the picture really looked like," and so would have on some occasion and more than once have "printed it off" or as we say "unrolled it."