Tarasque of Noves

The meaning and function of the statue (as well as the nature of the monster) are unknown, but it has been conjectured that the niche in its torso was intended to hold a severed human head.

Jean-Baptiste Michel wrote in 1889 that the statue was discovered in 1849 at a depth of 2.5m in a pile of ancient pottery ("poteries antiques") near Noves.

On the contrary, Isidor Gilles reported in 1896-98 that the statue was found in 1826 at a depth of 1m among Celtic, Greek, and Roman pottery ("poteries celtiques, grecques et romaines") about 500m from the château de Noves.

The heads have curly, prominent beards and moustaches; closed eyes; and straight (slightly downturned) mouths.

Fernand Benoit [fr] has suggested that a human head and leg originally hung out of the creature's mouth, alongside the arm.

[1]: 36–38  Dissenters from this view include Joseph Déchelette, who identified the piece as medieval,[5]: 41  and Alain Duval and Danielle Heude, who speculate that it is a work of the early Romanesque.

[5]: 41 [7]: 199  However, the Linsdorf monster is poorly provenanced (first coming to academic attention in 1980 with a provenance placing it in the south of France) and uncertainly dated (probably Iron Age Celtic, though doubts have been cast on its authenticity).

[2]: 213 [5]: 40  The Tarasque is not likely to be a fake given its early date of discovery and the (securely authentic) iconographic parallels that have been discovered since, such as the sculpture from the oppidum of Entremont.

[2]: 213 The monster, which Megaw described as a "great ithyphallic carnivore",[3] has been identified as a lion, a wolf, a bear, or some unidentifiable mythological creature.

[2]: 216  The Linsdorf monster has an oval hole in its torso which has been similarly conjectured to hold a human head.