The Sorcerer (cave art)

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The Sorcerer is one name for an enigmatic cave painting found in a cavern known as 'The Sanctuary' at Trois-Frères, France. It appears to depict a man dressed as a stag (or, alternatively, a half-human, half-stag spirit). Its date is approximately 13,000 BCE.

Whether a drawing of a god or a priest, the Sorcerer is a therianthrope, a symbolic blending of human and animal forms that can be found in many cultures. Therianthropes commonly blend the human form with animals that were directly important to local culture, for example as food. Thus, the image is commonly interpreted as a shaman performing a ritual to ensure good hunting; however, this interpretation cannot be proven.

Some believe that further animals may be discerned within the image: the hands have been described as bear-like, and the face that of a bird^{[citation needed]}. What is agreed on is that the legs and arms are human, as are the genitalia, and there are parallels with other ancient images in which human limbs are attached to an animal, usually a bison, to create a bipedal figure.

The Sorcerer bears a strong resemblance to the Celtic God Cernunnos, who was depicted as a man with deer horns, and similar imagery appears elsewhere in the satyrs, and fauns of Greek, and Roman mythology, and the Hindu Lord of Animals, Pashupati. The Sorcerer was created long before the emergence of any of these cultures, and has been interpreted as the earliest known evidence of the "Horned God" religion^{[citation needed]}.