LASCAUX
My tour in the Lascaux Caves
By: Payton Enge
The images in the Hall of the Bulls are amongst the most striking in all of
Paleolithic art: 130 figures, including 36 representations of animals and
some 50 geometric signs. This extensive frieze is composed of three animal
themes – horses (17 individuals), cattle (11 cows and bulls) and deer (6
stags) – which recur consistently in the various parts of the cave.
Exceptionally, a bear is also depicted.
The totality includes 161 graphic entities, of which 58 are
figurative (mostly animals), and 46 are various geometric
signs – quadrangular, branching, rectilinear, nested
elements, cruciform and groups of dots. There are also 57
indeterminate figures that may be signs, but that also may
be sketches for animal figures.
The Passageway links the Hall of the Bulls to the Nave and the
Apse. It contains a great concentration of images that are often
difficult to decipher. A total of 385 engraved and painted
figures have been counted and identified, including horses,
bison, ibexes, bovines, stags and various signs in the shapes of
hooks, crosses and squares.
There are four panels on the left wall of the Nave – those of the Seven Ibexes, the
Imprint, the Great Black Cow and the Crossed Bison. The right wall contains only the
Frieze of the Swimming Stags. The slope of the floor is the cause of this uneven
distribution. The species depicted include horses, ibexes, stags, bison and aurochs,
but in quite different proportions. As in every other part of the cave, horses are the
dominant theme, with twenty-seven separate depictions in the Nave. The aurochs, on
the other hand, appears only once, but dominates through its sheer size and its
position at the centre of this vast tableau. There are also nine ibexes, six five bison,
and six stags.
The Chamber of the Felines extends for roughly 25 meters, along which
André Glory counted more than 80 figures. Of the 51 animal figures in
this gallery, the horse is the dominant species, with twenty-nine
representations, followed by nine bison, four ibexes and three stags.
There are no aurochs. Images of felines are more present here, with six
depictions, than in the rest of the cave.
On a wall space of some thirty square meters, and an average ceiling height of
3.5 meters, the Apse contains over a thousand figures. They include nearly 500
animals and 600 geometric signs or lines. They appear on the walls and ceiling,
and with no interruption. Their density increases at the entrance at the far end,
and reaches its peak in the Apsidiole, which is located at the base of the Shaft
in the farthest part of this gallery. The very soft limestone surface provides a
partial explanation for such a graphic outpouring.
In contrast to the preceding sectors – the Apse, the Passageway
and the Hall of the Bulls – the Shaft contains only a limited
number of figures: eight in all. Four are figures of animals (a
horse, a bison, a bird and a rhinoceros) and three others are
geometric shapes (dots and hooks). In the centre of the
composition, the eye is drawn to a human figure.
lascaux caves