The Lascaux Notebooks

Jean-Luc Champerret, Philip Terry

• Publisher: Carcanet Classics
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781800171725
• eBook ISBN: 9781800171732
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient Poetry
• Index: Literature

This newest Carcanet Classic collects the oldest poetry yet discovered, as written down or runed in the Ice Age in Lascaux and other caves in the Dordogne, and now translated – tentatively – into English for the first time. The translation is at two removes, from French versions by the mysterious linguistic genius Jean-Luc Champerret, and then from the striking originals that retain such a sense of early human presence. Philip Terry mediates between the French and those hitherto inscrutable originals.

Jean-Luc Champerret's unique contribution to world literature is in his interpretation of the cave signs. And Philip Terry's contribution is to have discovered and rendered this seminal, hitherto unsuspected work into English. The translated poems are experiments, as the drawings may have been to the original cave poets composing them as image and sound. While archaeologists maintain that these signs are uninterpretable, Champerret assigns them meanings by analogy, then – in an inspired act of creative reading – inserts them into the frequent 3 x 3 grids to be found at Lascaux. The results – revelation of Ice-Age poetry – are startling.

27

FROM BOÎTE NOIRE: CARNET NOIR (1-33)

(BN. CN. 01)

watchman	hut	spear
eye	tree	tree
eye	mist	mountains

*

The watchman

by the hut

holds his spear

one eye

on the

trees

one eye

on the mist

the mountains

*

The watchman sits

by the hut

holding his spear erect28

he keeps one eye

on the

trees

one eye

on the mist covered

mountains

*

The watchman sits

motionless by the hut

clutching [?] his spear tight

he keeps one eye trained

on the swaying trees

at the forest’s edge

the other eye watches

the mist as it rises

over the [mountains]

29

(BN. CN. 02)

paw print	crossing	waterfall
paw print	hunters	cave
trap	eye	spears

*

Paw prints at

the crossing by

the waterfall

the paw prints

lead the hunters

to a [cave]

they set the trap

watch

spears ready

*

A line of paw print...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Introduction
• From Boîte Noire: Carnet Noir (1-33)
• From Boîte Rouge: Feuilles Détachées (A)
• From Boîte Jaune: Feuilles Détachées (1-3)
• From Boîte Rouge: Carnet Bleu (A)
• From Boîte Rouge: Carnet Bleu (D)
• From Boîte Rouge: Feuilles Détachées (C)
• From Boîte Noire: Carnet Noir (34-66)
• From Boîte Jaune: Feuilles Détachées (4-6)
• From Boîte Rouge: Carnet Bleu (B)
• From Boîte Rouge: Feuilles Détachées (B)
• From Boîte Rouge: Carnet Bleu (E)
• From Boîte Rouge: Carnet Bleu (G)
• From Boîte Jaune: Feuilles Détachées (7-9)
• From Boîte Jaune: Carnet Gris
• From Boîte Rouge: Carnet Bleu (C)
• From Boîte Rouge: Feuilles Détachées (D)
• From Boîte Noire: Feuilles Détachées
• From Boîte Jaune: Feuilles Détachées (10-12)
• From Boîte Rouge: Feuilles Détachées (E)
• From Boîte Rouge: Carnet Bleu (F)
• From Boîte Jaune: Feuilles Détachées (19-21)
• From Boîte Noire: Carnet Noir (67-99)
• Appendix 1: From Champerret’s Key to the Lascaux Signs
• Appendix 2: From Champerret’s Charcoal Drawings
• Acknowledgements
• Copyright