Claviform

Claviform is the reverse of stalactitic; it is composed of club-shaped parallel rods which adhere by their thin extremities. Examples, brown and black hæmatite.

Two other claviform tentacula arise from the anterior superior part of the mantle [of sea slugs of the genus Doris].

The embryo is roundish, compressed, with a very large, claviform radicle, and two large, foliaceous cotyledons, full of nerves, plaited, depressed, and applied to the radicle; the colour of the embryo is white, except the nerves of the cotyledons, which are rose-coloured.

One zoarial fragment, from sample 2, may belong to Figularia. [...] The elongate-claviform zooecia have long, smooth proximal gymnocysts, extending as much as one-third the zooecial length and continuing as narrow strips along the lateral margins nearly to the distal end.

They vary in shape from filiform (thread-shaped) or claviform (club-shaped) to capitate (with a terminal knob) or moniliform (with a series of knobs).

The claviform (club-shaped) shapes are especially prevalent in the Pyrenees particularly in the Ariege [...], but they are also found in the Dordogne (Lascaux, Gabillou), in Quercy (Saint-Eulalie), and on the Cantabrian coast [...].

Solanum contumazaense [...] Style 10–11 mm long, exerted 4 mm, sparsely papillose below center; stigma claviform, light green.

The claviform comprises a vertical line with a bulge at one side; but unlike the buttocks on the stylized females, the bulge is usually on the middle or the upper half of the 'sign'! It has been suggested that the 'upper bulge' on a claviform instead represents breasts, but this is based on supposedly stylized statuettes from Dolni Vestonice and elsewhere, comprising a rod with two little lumps near the top, and thus on analogies with sites even further away in space and time from the claviforms.

In the early days of research, the images were often read very literally, and this was certainly taken to extremes – the classic example, of course, is the ‘signs’ in Ice Age cave art which the first researchers assumed to represent actual objects, and gave them names accordingly – for example, ‘claviforms’ were thought to be clubs, ‘tectiforms’ were thought to be roofs or huts, and so forth [...].

There is also a faded red painting of a claviform (a thick curved line with a raised bump or point in the middle) that looks awfully similar to those found at a few other sites in northern Spain. A claviform from Altamira was dated using the uranium-series technique and is at least 35,000 years old.

In Niaux, claviforms played a special role in that respect because we also find them very far inside the cave near the end of the galleries. [...] The same structure is visible at the Salon Noir itself. There, a claviform and a parallel bar were made on the first panel to the right, at the entrance.

CLAVOPORA Busk, 1874. Colony small, erect, coriaceous, claviform (nail-shaped), with two well differentiated parts: [...]

The signs can be sorted out into two main classes: those which are paired or 'coupled' [...] and those which stand alone—mostly tectiform (roof-shaped) and claviform (key-shaped). There seems to be a conventional arrangement whereby certain signs are placed at the beginning of a 'sanctuary'.

[André] Leroi-Gourhan identifies the following male signs: hook, single and double bars, dots and rows of dots. The bars derive from the phallus and the dots – we are convinced – stand for drops of sperm. He identifies the following female signs: triangles, rectangles, oval, derived from vulva and pudenda, and claviform, i.e. key-shaped signs, abstractions from a woman's figure with prominent backside [...].

"Claviform" ("key-shaped") is the technical name given to the shapes in Figure 2 by archaeologists specializing in Paleolithic art. The claviform (key-like) sign common in High Paleolithic art may represent the yellow sclerotia, packed with ergot [...]