Case file · Folklore / legend
The 'Sorcerer' of Trois-Frères
A horned, part-human, part-animal figure painted and engraved deep in the Cave of the Trois-Frères in the French Pyrenees around 15,000 years ago, interpreted as a shaman, a 'master of animals' or a god.
13,000 BCE · 43.03, 1.21 · status: disputed
The account
Henri Breuil drew it in the 1920s as an antlered being with an owl-like face, a horse's tail and human legs, and called it a sorcerer. Margaret Murray hailed it as the first known depiction of a deity. The figure became an icon of theories about Palaeolithic shamanism and horned gods.
The sceptical view
Photographs suggest Breuil's influential drawing added details such as the antlers that are hard to see on the wall, so many theories rest on an interpretation rather than the image itself.