Galerie Muséale INRAP

Animal : an exhibition of beast(s) !

From the beginning, man has been in contact with the animal with which he shares the same living space. It is essential to his survival by providing him with food and means to cover his daily needs, such as the manufacture of bone tools. At the beginning of the Neolithic (from 6,000 to 2,200 BC in France), the domestication of certain species modifies the relationship between man and animal : it becomes a larger and controlled resource and their relationship is then more intimate. The relationship with the animal is also deeper: man contemplates it in the wild, admires its rarity, its qualities and fantasizes its virtues. The animal is sometimes observed, sometimes imagined and even divinized.
This exhibition offers you a panorama of the most diverse links that man and animals of all kinds (but also feathers and scales) have maintained and sometimes still maintain. Close relations which testify of an important debt of the man towards the fauna which it côtoie.

Illustration : Médaillon d'applique : cheval vainqueur. Lyon (69) - Lugdunum, Musée et Théâtres romains

The contemplation of the animal

From the Paleolithic, the animal seems to occupy the imagination of men: the decorated caves of Lascaux, Chauvet or Cosquer, are covered with drawings of herbivores, hunted for their meat, and carnivores, probably admired or feared. The first representations of hybrid creatures, half man and half animal, appear and are still in use today.
Each species and each creature carries in it a symbolism, drawn from one of its characteristics: Hercules, by killing the lion of Nemea, proves his strength and, by putting on the skin of the lion, the hero takes on its power and adorns himself with the attribute of the animal.
Painted on ceramics, used for sacrifices or adorning everyday objects, the animal populates man's imagination.

See object sheet.

Illustration : Tête d'Hercule. Lyon [69] - Musée Gadagne.

Where are the deer?

Two vases represent respectively a stag, identified by its antlers, and a doe. The latter is recognizable by its raised ears and tail, without antlers, and seems to be in a waiting posture, which hinds adopt during the rutting period. Cernunnos demonstrates that the deer has a strong symbolic charge.

If you would like more information and to see the deer come to life, click HERE.

See item sheet.

Illustration : Vases gaulois peints. Clermont-Ferrand (63) - Musée Bargoin.

Taking the bull by the horns

This carved marble plaque, fractured into three pieces, was discovered in the remains of a temple dedicated to the cult of Mithra. It depicts the taurobolus, the sacrifice of a bull, according to the codes of the cult: the heart of the bull is pierced with a sword, and ancient texts argue that its blood would have been used to baptize the faithful.
See the object sheet.

Illustration : Bas-relief, Lucciana [20] musée de site archéologique de Mariana, Prince Rainier III de Monaco.

The Dolphin's dolphins

Animal representations are often used in heraldic coats of arms to represent qualities attributed to different species. Thus, the lion is a symbol of courage when the dog represents fidelity. They are referred to as "talking arms" when the name of the animal comes close in sound to the name of the family or locality they designate. This use is particularly bold with the dolphin.
While the historical and etymological origin of the province of Dauphiné is uncertain, the depiction of the dauphin distinctly refers to its lord called "the Dauphin". In 1344, the Dauphiné was definitively attached to the kingdom of France and the eldest son of the sovereign henceforth bore this title. These arms combine the lilies of France and the dauphins.

See item sheet.

Illustration : Armoirie. Caen (14) - Musée de Normandie.

Bovine look

This relationship between man and animal is sometimes fused with the representation of supernatural beings combining half-human, half-animal characteristics. This is the case with this zoomorphic face that evokes both a human being with eyes and nose and an animal with horns and a long snout. It is an element of a chariot hitch that was deposited in a tomb of the Second Iron Age (from -450 to the 1st century BC).
This representation is specific to Celtic mythology, itself strongly influenced by the Greco-Roman pantheon: this figurine is reminiscent of the Greek river-god Acheloos, embodied by a bearded and horned man.

See object sheet.

Illustration : Visage zoomorphe. Caen (14) - Musée de Normandie.

The fury of the dragon

This bronze element was found in a tank tomb of the 3rd century BC. The deceased was not accompanied by weapons but only by male toiletries (razor). The chariot was very richly decorated. The dome is decorated with ten monsters in the outer band. In the center, three dragons with snubbed lips reveal their teeth.
With their manes, the dragons are reminiscent of horses with snake bodies. These creatures are rarely found in the Celtic bestiary, which makes this object all the more exceptional.
To view the object in 3D, click HERE.

View the object sheet.

Illustration : Dôme aux dragons. Saint-Germain-en-Laye (78) Musée d'Archéologie Nationale - Domaine national de Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

Is this a good situation, centaur?

The centaur is a fantastic creature emblematic of antiquity. Half-man, half-horse, he embodies either bestiality or wisdom and intelligence: the god of medicine Aesculapius was indeed educated by the centaur Chiron. Made of bone, this handle evokes the relationship between men and hybrid beings in an animal material.

To view this object in 3D, click HERE.

See object sheet.

Illustration : Manche sculpté au centaure jouant de la lyre. Toulouse (31) - Musée Saint-Raymond.

The animal: an infinite resource!

L The first testimonies of human activity attest that man hunts and fishes for food: his survival depends on the animal. But it is not only a source of food: the animal is exploited... to the bone! Skeleton, horns, wood, teeth, skin... everything is good in the animal to provide what to clothe, shelter, equip, arm or tool itself. The materials sometimes soft or hard, tight and thick, beautiful and tender from the living provide a wide variety of raw materials to artisans.the bone, is used for combs or pins. The representation of the animal is ubiquitous in the ornaments and decorations of everyday objects.

Illustration (left) : Désarticulation d'une patte de cervidé à l'aide d'un outil en silex.

Illustration (right) : Epingle. Le Mans [72] - Musée Jean-Claude Boulard - Carré Plantagenêt.

Isn't my fish fresh?

Tuna vertebrae have been found in quantity in the fill of the Roman port of Marseille. Traces of cutting on the vertebrae attest that the fish was processed directly upon return from fishing. Tuna fishing was widespread in the Mediterranean during antiquity and Opien, a Latin author, praised the Marseilles fishery as "excellent and truly marvelous!"

See the object sheet.

Illustration : Vertèbres de thon. Marseille (13) - Musée d'Histoire de Marseille.

Armed to hunt!

Hunting and fishing activities, are well known in the prehistoric societies of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic (from -3 million years to -6,000 years B.C.), thanks to the discovery of very numerous tools and weapons made of cut flint. The Champ-Chalatras deposit in the Puy-de-Dôme, an open-air habitat site occupied seasonally by groups of hunter-gatherers around 8,000 BC, yielded a set of small straight-backed, truncated-base arrowhead armatures, called Malaurie points.
These points, probably used for auroch hunting as attested by the remains of bones preserved on this site, are characteristic of the last hunter-gatherers of Western Europe. Particularly effective, they caused a fatal hemorrhage.

See object sheet.

Illustration : Silex taillés de type Malaurie. Clermont-Ferrand (63) - Musée Bargoin.

Loud and clear

This blue glass object decorated with a spiral cord was discovered during the excavation of the site of the Nancy Museum of Fine Arts. The preventive excavation was carried out on a part of the modern fortifications of the city. The object was uncovered in the filling of the defensive ditches. Although fragmentary, its shape allows it to be interpreted as a calling horn or a hunting horn.
Music is omnipresent at the hunt: it transmits orders and signals to the men. In modern times, hunting is no longer a mode of subsistence but constitutes a privilege and a prestigious activity reserved for the ruling elite. Its practice becomes ritualized and is gradually surrounded by a pomp and circumstance of which music is an essential component.

See the object sheet.

Illustration : Corne d'appel. Nancy (54) - Musée des Beaux-Arts.

All in leather

Since prehistoric times, the skin of wild or domestic animals has been used. The prepared leather offers a waterproof and solid material. Man uses it for shelter, clothing and he makes many everyday objects in this material that is cut and assembled by seams.
Dating from the late Middle Ages, the small leather purse was closed by metal fasteners. The small holes along the flap indicate that it has probably lost its original decoration.
The child's shoe dating from the modern period, was made several centuries after the Aumonière and its sole shows no evidence of wear. Probably a shoe misplaced by a giddy person?

See the shoe object sheet.

See the almshouse object sheet.

Illustration (left) : Chaussure d'enfant. Metz [57] Le musée de La Cour d’Or-Metz Métropole

Illustration (right) : Aumonière. Metz [57] Le musée de La Cour d’Or-Metz Métropole

Down to the bone

Game elements or fragments of plated decoration, the function of these objects commonly referred to as "tokens" is rarely identifiable. They are most often extracted from plaques cut from the long bones of oxen. The openwork waste plate suggests how the tablemaker formed them by incision. For convenience, they were probably engraved before they were extracted.

See tablet maker sheet.

See token object sheet.

Illustration (left) : Tabletterie. Besançon [25] Musée des Beaux Arts et d'Archéologie.

Illustration (right) : Jeton. Besançon [25] Musée des Beaux Arts et d'Archéologie.

It will cut!

The Neolithic saw man become sedentary. Agriculture and breeding develop then.
This period is also named "age of the polished stone": the size of the flint gives way to the shaping of tools by polishing, which makes them more resistant to cut down trees, clear land, split. This fragmentary axe is made of three materials: stone, antler and wood.
See object sheet.

Illustration : Hâche. Nantes (44) - Musée Dobrée / Grand Patrimoine de Loire-Atlantique.

The rare pearl

The nacre bead is produced by a mollusk, often an oyster, when a foreign object enters its shell. Nacre in concentric layers is deposited around this impurity to limit the irritation it causes to the animal. Archaeological discoveries in the south of the Arabian Peninsula attest to pearl fishing and its use by man since the 5th millennium BC.
See object sheet.

Illustration : Bague. Lyon [69] - Musée Gadagne.

The fashionable animal

A bird, or perhaps a bird of prey, with its hooked beak and its sharp talons, has lent its silhouette to these fibulae. These objects used to attach clothes are real jewels. Here, the glass eye of the birds sparkles on their silver bodies. The motif of the galloping horse adorns many sigillated ceramics made in Lezoux in the Gallo-Roman period. This hallmark-matrix was discovered whole in the potter's workshop. After having shaped his mold, he printed the silhouette of the horse on its inner walls. The pattern then appears in hollow in the mold. The shaped piece is then molded inside and is decorated with the horse in relief. As it dries, the clay in the piece shrinks which allows it to be extracted and the mold to be used again.

To learn more about the decoration of Lezoux sigillated ceramics, click HERE.

See punch object sheet.

See fibula object sheet.

Illustration (left) : Poinçon-matrice. Lezoux (63) Musée départemental de la céramique.

Illustration (right) : Deux fibules aviformes. Laon (02) musée d'art et d'archéologie du Pays de Laon.

To tame the animal

Man has profoundly transformed his ecosystem so that it best meets his needs. It was in the Neolithic period that agriculture was born through the cultivation of wild cereals and the domestication of wild animals for rearing. This not only ensures a stable supply of food , but also exploits the animals for all kinds of work. Used to plow fields, move around, provide protection, or simply keep company, the animal is ubiquitous with humans.

Illustration : Proposition de restitution de l'occupation des berges de la Devèze à l'époque gauloise.

Big auroch will become small

The development of domestication during the Neolithic period has durably transformed a part of the animal world. Man has selected animals over many generations according to criteria that meet his needs such as the quantity of meat, milk or wool that can be obtained. New species have thus appeared: the current domestic cow, for example, is derived from the wild auroch, after thousands of years of breeding. Archaeozoology is the study of the relationship between man and animal, through the remains of the latter.

To learn more about this indispensable discipline of archaeology, click HERE.

May the forces be with you!

A pair of forces is a kind of large pair of wrought iron scissors whose two pointed blades are held open by a bow that acts as a spring.
This tool had a varied use but shepherds still used it until the early 20th century to shear sheep. One can find forces associated with spindle weights which are small weights in the shape of ring which one threads at the bottom of the spindle of the spinners. They make it possible to wedge the first strand of wool of the skein and to give inertia to the rotation to allow the torsion of the wire.
Spindle whorls are often cut from a perforated ceramic shard or, more rarely, shaped and decorated.

See object sheet.

Illustration : Forces, fusaïoles. Bordeaux (33) - Musée d'Aquitaine.

Where is my sheep?

Sheep and goats were domesticated very early, the earliest archaeological evidence is dated to around 9,000 B.C.
This small bell was attached to the neck of a sheep or goat to facilitate the work of the shepherd by allowing him to locate the animal by sound. It comes from an ancient agricultural domain located in the Vosges named the villa at the Nereid.
Sheep and goat bones, other bells and forces for shearing discovered on this site confirm that it was dedicated to the breeding. Nevertheless, it was also endowed with rich living spaces and baths in an exceptional state of preservation.

See object sheet.

Illustration : clochette. Epinal [88] Musée Départemental d'Art Ancien et Contemporain.

An object with an edge

Goats and sheep provided man with milk or wool but their meat was also consumed. These knives, discovered in the same agricultural field as the bell presented earlier, were used in butchery to cut up the various pieces. The handle made of perishable material, wood surely, has now disappeared.
In ancient times, a large part of the population ate meat only on rare occasions such as during religious ceremonies and festivals or funeral banquets.

Discover what our ancestors ate ICI.

See the object sheet.

Illustration (left) : Couteau. Epinal [88] Musée Départemental d'Art Ancien et Contemporain.

Illustration (right) : Couteau. Epinal [88] Musée Départemental d'Art Ancien et Contemporain.

Life and death

This recent archaeological discovery on the site of the Clermont-Ferrand/Auvergne airport is a moving testimony to the sensitive relationship between man and animal.The body of a child laid in an 80 cm wooden coffin, now disappeared, is accompanied by the remains of the funeral banquet held in his honor: earthenware vessels containing food and drink, pieces of butchery such as a ham and lemon, and a half pig cut lengthwise placed to the left of the child's skeleton.The body of a puppy wearing a collar with a bell was placed at the feet of its young master or mistress to accompany him or her in death.The dog is the first animal to have been domesticated by man, at least 15,000 years ago.

To learn more about this discovery, click HERE.

Illustration (left) : Relevé photogrammétrique du squelette d'un jeune enfant, entouré de celui d'un chien et d'un cochon, après prélèvement des vases de la tombe.

Illustration (right) : Stèle funéraire d'une fillette. Bordeaux (33) - Musée d'Aquitaine.

Bits for a dead man

Other animals have been discovered by archaeologists in funerary contexts such as horses in Celtic burials called "chariot tombs" because of the burial of a member of the elite on a chariot. Domesticated around 2,200 B.C., the horse was used for its strength but was also a symbol of prestige in many ancient societies.
This bronze bit is decorated with small inlays of coral from the Mediterranean. It was placed in the mouth of one of the two horses deposited in the tomb of a member of the Celtic elite discovered in the department of La Manche.

See item sheet.

Illustration : Mors de cheval. Caen (14) - Musée de Normandie.

This is my horse, my battle

Because of its abilities, the horse is also used in a warlike context, whether it is ridden by a rider or pulls a chariot. The first war chariots appeared in Egypt in the 16th century BC and then spread throughout the Mediterranean world.
To learn more about the different uses of stones, click ICI.

See item sheet.

Illustration : Camée. Rouen (76) - Musée départemental des Antiquités de la Seine-Maritime.

Conclusion

In ancient societies, the animal is present on a daily basis alongside Man, with whom it has maintained sometimes close, sometimes more distant relationships. archaeology allows us to put our relationship with the animal in all its forms into perspective.

Illustration : Applique en bronze montrant la déesse Cybèle, protectrice des enfants et des animaux, entourée de deux lions, avec son amant Attis coiffé d'un bonnet phrygien, Famars (Nord).

Acknowledgements

Exhibition created by the student curators of the National Heritage Institute as part of the European Archaeology Days 2022.

Géraldine Chopin
Arielle Gévaudan
Quentin Richard
Joëlle Tchipandi
Benjamin Carcaud

Permanent exhibition locations for the objects presented:

Besançon [25] - Musée des Beaux Arts et d'Archéologie.
Bordeaux [33] -Musée d'Aquitaine.
Caen [14] - Musée de Normandie.
Clermont-Ferrand [63] - Bargoin Museums.
Epinal [88] - Departmental Museum of Ancient and Contemporary Art.
Laon [02] - Laon Country Museum of Art and Archaeology.
Le Mans [72] - Jean-Claude Boulard Museum - Carré Plantagenêt.
Lezoux [63] - Departmental Ceramic Museum.
Lucciana [20] -Mariana Archaeological Site Museum, Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
Lyon [69] - Lugdunum, Museum and Roman Theaters.
Lyon [69] - Musée Gadagne.
Marseille [13] - Musée d'Histoire de Marseille.
Metz [57] - Musée de La Cour d'Or-Metz Métropole.
Nancy [54] - Musée des Beaux-Arts.
Nantes [44] - Musée Dobrée / Grand Patrimoine de Loire-Atlantique.
Rouen [76] - Departmental Museum of Antiquities of the Seine-Maritime.
Saint-Germain-en-Laye [78] - National Archaeology Museum - National Domain of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
Toulouse [31] - Saint-Raymond Museum.

Exhibition : Animal : an exhibition of beast(s) ! Visit ▶BACK ▶

Animal : an exhibition of beast(s) !

Animal : an exhibition of beast(s) !

The contemplation of the animal

The contemplation of the animal

Where are the deer?

Where are the deer?

Taking the bull by the horns

Taking the bull by the horns

The Dolphin's dolphins

The Dolphin's dolphins

Bovine look

Bovine look

The fury of the dragon

The fury of the dragon

Is this a good situation, centaur?

Is this a good situation, centaur?

The animal: an infinite resource!

Isn't my fish fresh?

Isn't my fish fresh?

Armed to hunt!

Armed to hunt!

Loud and clear

Loud and clear

All in leather

Down to the bone

It will cut!

It will cut!

The rare pearl

The rare pearl

The fashionable animal

To tame the animal

To tame the animal

Big auroch will become small

Big auroch will become small

May the forces be with you!

May the forces be with you!

Where is my sheep?

Where is my sheep?

An object with an edge

Life and death

Bits for a dead man

Bits for a dead man

This is my horse, my battle

This is my horse, my battle

Conclusion

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements