Two main reasons have led us to start again the study of the Sorcerer’s cave in Saint-Cirq-du-Bugue (Dordogne): first of all the real progress existing in recent years in the means available for the study of prehistoric parietal art, which had not been applied to the site; and secondly the discovery of vandalism on some of the art, which needed to be assessed precisely. The new campaign of tracings, as well as the attention given to understanding the making of the engravings in connection with the underground relief shapes allowed a better apprehension of the artists’ environment at the time of the making of the works of art, together with a more precise idea of the gestures and techniques used. Furthermore, during our first campaign in the autumn 2010, we were able to carry out a full topographic coverage of the cave associated with a precise sizing of all the engravings, in view of the future making of a digital site model. On most of the engravings studied up to date, it was possible to precise some of the ancient lines, to identify the position of the modern lines and to record the effects of the degradation agents associated to a rock support that is especially fragile in places. The main figure of the cave, the human ithyphallic figure, was newly interpreted (especially its head), which allowed us to underline the engraving of an equine whose back leg is partially superimposed to the engraving of the Sorcerer’s sex. The new engraving of a horse, up to date unnoticed, was also discovered. Finally, in the course of our investigations, it appeared essential to study the whole of the engravings as belonging to one composition stretched around a large fissure on the vault ‒ showing how important the natural shapes of the rock surfaces are in the organisation of the representations ‒ as well as to rethink the making of the decoration as the superimposition of drawings from different time periods
