The Cave of the Trois-Frères is a

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

in southwestern

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

famous for its

cave painting In archaeology, cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric art, prehistoric origin. These paintings were often c ...

s. It is located in Montesquieu-Avantès, in the Ariège ''

département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. There are a total of 101 ...

''. The cave is named for three brothers (, ), Max, Jacques, and Louis Begouën, who, along with their father Comte , discovered it in 1912. The drawings of the cave were made famous in the publications of the Abbé

Henri Breuil Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil (28 February 1877 – 14 August 1961), often referred to as Abbé Breuil (), was a French Catholic Church, Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist. He studied cave art in the Somme ( ...

. The cave art appears to date to around 15,000 years ago.

Artwork

One of the paintings, known as "

The Sorcerer ''The Sorcerer'' is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaboration. The plot of ''The Sorcerer'' is based on a Christmas stor ...

", is the "most famous and enigmatic human figure" with the features of several different animals, whose exact characteristics remain a matter of debate. Engravings featuring what appear to be several birds and a

cave cricket The orthopteran family Rhaphidophoridae of the suborder Ensifera has a worldwide distribution. Common names for these insects include cave crickets, camel crickets, spider crickets (sometimes shortened to "criders" or "sprickets"), and sand trea ...

were found on a fragment of bison bone at the junction of Trois-Frères with the Grotte d'Enlène. The cave cricket was portrayed with such fidelity that the insect's species has been determined. It is thought to be the earliest known representation of an insect.Bégouën H., 1929: À propos de l'idée de fécondité dans l'iconographie préhistorique, ''Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française'', 26, 3, pp 197–199. A variety of engraved animals are found on the cave walls, including lions, owls, and bison. Of particular note is a horse overlaid with claviform (club-like) symbols, and an apparently speared

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear native to Eurasia and North America. Of the land carnivorans, it is rivaled in size only by its closest relative, the polar bear, which is much less variable in size and slightly bigger on av ...

vomiting blood. Aside from the "Sorcerer", other human-like figures can be seen at Trois-Frères, such as the man-bison, and a character known as the "small sorcerer" who appears to be playing a nose-flute. Also of interest is an etched representation of a 59cm long

phallus A phallus (: phalli or phalluses) is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history, a figure with an erect penis is described as ''ithyphallic''. Any object that symbo ...

that follows the contours of the cave walls.

Tuc d'Audoubert

The Trois-Freres cave is part of a single cave-complex formed by the Volp River. The complex is divided into three caves: the central Trois-Freres, Enlène () to the east, and the Tuc d'Audoubert () to the west. The Tuc d'Audoubert was discovered by the three teenage brothers in 1912. The galleries are situated on three levels; the River Volp flows through the lowest, the middle contains decorated galleries known as the ''La Salle Nuptiale'' (The Bridal Room) and ''La Galerie des Gravures'' (The Gallery of Engravings), while the upper has further decoration in ''La Chatière'' and ''Salle des Talons'' (Hall of Claws) and finishes in the ''Salle des Bisons'' (Hall of Bisons). In 2013, the

Tracking in Caves Tracking in Caves is an international archaeology project focusing on reading and understanding human tracks in archaeological contexts. The project combines Western scientific approaches with the indigenous knowledge of present-day trackers from ...

project tested experience based reading of prehistoric footprints by specialised trackers of Ju/'hoansi San with great success. The ''Salle des Bisons'' contains two masterfully modeled

bison A bison (: bison) is a large bovine in the genus ''Bison'' (from Greek, meaning 'wild ox') within the tribe Bovini. Two extant taxon, extant and numerous extinction, extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American ...

, which were sculpted in clay with a stone spatula-like tool and the artist's fingers. The pair are among the largest and finest surviving prehistoric sculptures.

References

External links

Cave Paintings and Sculptures
{{Authority control 1912 in paleontology Caves containing pictograms in France Landforms of Ariège (department) Caves of Occitania (administrative region) Art of the Upper Paleolithic Prehistoric sites in France Limestone caves