ABSTRACT
In the hills north of Marseille remains of a Celtic sanctuary were excavated in 1919-27, and architectural fragments and sculptures in the local Coudoux limestone recovered. The whole structure was originally painted, and traces remained of chequered panels and bands of red, yellow and white on the underside of the lintels, and of geometric motifs and representations of horses in red, white and black on the uprights. The high quality of this sculpture led Jacobsthal to think of a Celtic sculptor working in Massalia; the faces were originally painted red, with black fringes of hair falling to the eyebrows. Architectural fragment from the Roquepertuse sanctuary, broken at the right, and engraved with four highly stylized horses’ heads. Remains of red painting survive, including a bridle on the largest head. The figure has a worked tenon at the foot for insertion into a socle, and its treatment suggests that, like Euffigneix, a wooden xoanon prototype was in the sculptor’s mind.
