Visiting the Dame de Brassempouy Museum with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
Driving
southwest from Bordeaux, my husband and I went through the flat Landes region
full of pine forests until we met the road towards Pau, leading to the
foothills of the Pyrenées Mountains.
Our tourist
destination was the village of Brassempouy, which houses a small yet very
informative archaeological museum. We
arrived after the formal tours were given, but were still given a mini tour in
French to orient us to the museum.
I asked our
guide if we were still in Gascony after our long drive through the Landes. The guide pointed to a detailed map on the
wall and indicated that Gascony comprised a good deal of the Eastern Pyrénees
Mountains and the area south of Bordeaux, which included the French and Spanish
Basque regions. I wondered if “Gascon”
was the French word for “Basque.” Many
of homes we passed in the Pyrénees foothills did resemble Basque houses with
their asymmetrical, sloping roofs.
We admired
the collection of prehistoric rock tools, which are distinguishable from rocks
by the smooth grooves cut into them that come to a point. The tools fit in the hand and the weight of
the rock would make it a powerful tool for breaking things like the skull or
bones of an animal I thought. The cave
where these tools had been found was recreated in the museum with scattered
bones on the cave floor.
One of the
most important finds in this cave was the Dame de Brassempouy (Lady of
Brassempouy). The original sculpture is
housed in the Musée des Antiquités Nationales in Saint-Germain-en-Laye outside
Paris for security reasons. A replica of the sculpture of the Dame de
Brassempouy is in the village museum.
The original sculpture is 25,000 years old and is unique in that it
portrays the hair, face, and neck of a woman.
It is one of the oldest representations of a human face.
Bangs and
shoulder-length hair that looks like it is crimped surround the face that sits
on a very long neck. The sculpture’s usage is unclear and would probably be
conjecture in any case as this item comes from a pre-literate and
pre-historical society. However, I did
remark to my husband, “She looks just like the young woman we saw at breakfast.”
In the museum
store, I bought a copy of Connaître la Préhistoire de Pyrénees (1996, Editions
Sud Ouest), because Brassempouy was in it and to plan any future outings if we
were in the area. I love good reference
books.
On the way
back to Bordeaux, we drove through the end of the “Running of the Cows” in Mont
de Marsan. Everyone is town was wearing
white shirts and trousers with red bandanas around their necks. Several people wore berets. Barricades were removed as we drove through
town; I hoped the cows had all been corralled.
Dinner that
night was a typical Gascon dish – magret de canard, or duck breast of a duck
raised for the foie gras industry.
According to Connaître la Cuisine Gasconne (1990, Editions Sud Ouest),
the French traditionally only eat foie gras on Christmas and New Year’s
Eve. I have always thought foie gras was
a symbolic food to condemn gluttony.
If you eat
too much foie gras, especially goose foie gras whose fat is extremely rich, you
can become so ill that you will never eat it again. For those who eat reasonable amounts of foie
gras, it is a reminder that we were put here to have dominion, or
responsibility, for the earth and should avoid gluttony not only of rich foods,
but also gluttony of dairy products, fish, vegetables, grains, fruits, and wine as
well.
The best
wine that goes with the magret de canard that I ordered, especially when it is
grilled, is a Gascon wine called Madiran.
It is made from cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and tannant grapes.
It resembles a red Bordeaux, but has more tannins, which makes it slightly
bitter. Tannins are anti-oxidants and seem to help digest magret de canard with
its thick lining of fat that helps protect and baste it during grilling.
