Specimens

Robin Hood Cave Horse

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Site:
Robin Hood Cave
Lat/Long:
53.11, -0.9
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The Robin Hood Cave Horse (previously known as the Ochre Horse) is a fragment of rib engraved with a horse's head, discovered in 1876, in the Robin Hood Cave in Creswell Crags, Derbyshire. It is the only piece of Upper Paleolithic portable art showing an animal to have been found in Britain.

The horse motif was the first image to be engraved. Later, vertical lines are overlain across the body and in front of the horse. The overall effect creates an impression of a palisade, fence, or even falling spears. If this is the case, we might be seeing a scene in which horses are guided by a wooden structure—maybe for hunting purposes. The deeply scored horizontal lines behind and over the horse were drawn last. They appear frenetic and may constitute a form of erasure. Similar, but more curved, lines are also present on the other side of the rib.