Engraved Horses Panel

The focus of this panel is a galloping horse, drawn in the center of the cave wall. In front of the horse is a cave bear and behind it is two mammoths. These animals would have been drawn either by hand or using a tool, such as a branch or a bone, and if you zoom into the drawing of the horse, you can see that the lines on it’s side have been created with two fingers.

This panel can be found in the Hillaire Chamber, a roughly circular space with a collapsed area in the center. We know that cave bears also passed through this chamber due to the scratches on the walls that intertwine with the human drawings.

The Chauvet Cave is located in the Ardeche region of southern France and was visited by the Paleolithic people from 36,000 to 29,000 years ago. These people decorated the caves with animal symbols, abstract signs, and even some representations of human beings, such as handprints, which have been discovered and preserved today.