Something wonderful for the weekend! About 40,000 years ago, during the #IceAge, this tiny figurine was sculpted from mammoth ivory. Imagine the artist at work, sitting by the warmth and flickering light of a fire, carving what is the world’s oldest known sculpture of a horse! 📷 by me #Archaeology - ThreadSky

alisonfisk.bsky.social • 100 days ago

Something wonderful for the weekend!

About 40,000 years ago, during the #IceAge, this tiny figurine was sculpted from mammoth ivory. Imagine the artist at work, sitting by the warmth and flickering light of a fire, carving what is the world’s oldest known sculpture of a horse!
📷 by me

#Archaeology

Comments

eridani24.bsky.social•99 days ago

Over 8 times as old as the Great Pyramid of Giza, to put it in perspective. Mindblowing.

litterygeniarse.bsky.social•99 days ago

It looks as though the mane and tail are braided in which case the horse is domestic at this stage. How does that compare with when domestication was thought to have happened?

markusbuehler.bsky.social•98 days ago

It´s clearly not braided. Domestication of horses started much, much later in the bronze age. This horse´s mane is not braided, it had a short errect mane like those of the Przewalski-horse. The tail is also not braided, but likely just partially lost or it was necer fully carved.

markusbuehler.bsky.social•98 days ago

And regarding the pattern, very similar ones were also found on other examples, like this mammoth. It was only some sort of supperficial texture, possibly to indicate longer fur.

alisonfisk.bsky.social•99 days ago

The incised cross lines along the neck and tail are also on the rump which it’s suggested represent the dorsal stripe of a wild horse

litterygeniarse.bsky.social•99 days ago

I like my idea better.

luful.bsky.social•100 days ago

Oh the simple times!

elimodnar.bsky.social•99 days ago

That's mind-blowing. 40,000 years...

chaplaindorothy.bsky.social•100 days ago

One of my favs❤️🐴❤️

angelusmerula.bsky.social•99 days ago

Awesome

A mother, guarding her infants at play, might do this ?

sheena-77.bsky.social•100 days ago

How beautiful! It’s so graceful and “modern” looking.

punkichu.bsky.social•99 days ago

It's stunning. With sculptures this old and small I always try to imagine what it feels like in the palm of your hand, the weight and the texture and the lines

I bet this one fit perfectly

samsontol.bsky.social•100 days ago

My brother's limerick
Prehistory
Human nature just can't be denied
We carved women and horses with pride
Painted frescos in caves
Added jewelry to graves
Can you guess how Neanderthals died

k8tdidtoo.bsky.social•99 days ago

This is wonderful

anglianrose.bsky.social•100 days ago

The Ice Age Art exhibition at the British Museum was so stunning, the idea of people making these wonderful things such as musical instruments from bird's wing bones.....art is intrinsic to us as humans

steveshark.bsky.social•100 days ago

If you’d posted this on Facebook, you’d have had dozens of people claiming that Man hasn’t been around that long…

cyclinggpa.bsky.social•99 days ago

Extraordinary:)

alisonfisk.bsky.social•100 days ago

Excavated in 1931, together with a number of other ivory animal figurines, from the Vogelherd Cave, Swabian Jura, Germany. Known as the ‘Vogelherd Horse’ it is on display at the Museum of Ancient Cultures at Hohentübingen Castle, Tübingen, Germany https://www.emuseum.uni-tuebingen.de/objects/18622/wildpferd?ctx=cb9798a4c555c79dfa7d46865e9638a144159e84&idx=7

alisonfisk.bsky.social•100 days ago

A couple of links with more info

https://www.iceageart.de/en/ice-age-art

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282807907_The_Vogelherd_Cave_and_the_discovery_of_the_earliest_art_-_history_critics_and_new_questions

craigwinston.bsky.social•99 days ago

How did the ivory much less the figurine end up in a German cave 40,000 years ago? That is amazing.

alisonfisk.bsky.social•99 days ago

The Aurignacian hunter-gatherers who created the horse and other ivory animal figurines likely brought the animals they hunted to the Vogelherd Cave for meat processing. Hundreds of Aurignacian bone and stone tools, and animal bones with cut and chop marks have been excavated from the cave …

alisonfisk.bsky.social•99 days ago

… This includes bones of 28 individual mammoths which would account for how the mammoth ivory came to the cave. There were a large number of horse bones too, so the people who hunted and ate mammoth and horse also made depictions of them

langurlover.bsky.social•100 days ago

One of my favorite pre-historic art pieces. So amazing.

gaellebd.bsky.social•99 days ago

Oh I love this one. I saw an exhibition in #Tübingen years ago with almost all of the figurines from the #Paleolithic and I stayed 30min in front of each trying to feel what the people thoughts when they made it. 😍

sergiospototo.com•99 days ago

🧪

pgmetz.bsky.social•100 days ago

Spectacular!

deserthag.bsky.social•99 days ago

I used to do fieldwork and there was something indescribable about holding something someone crafted thousands of years ago.

mrterrbear.bsky.social•100 days ago

Our ancestors were just as creative as we are. I think people lose sight of that.

euanmcturk.bsky.social•90 days ago

In evolutionary terms, there’s very little to separate us in terms of potential. The difference is in education.

cwr100.bsky.social•99 days ago

Mind blowing 😮

xyzmayb.bsky.social•99 days ago

Exquisite

xyzmayb.bsky.social•99 days ago

The link "Ice Age art of the Swabian Jura"- did you photograph the lion etc also? Love the horse but,oh, that lion!

alisonfisk.bsky.social•99 days ago

If you mean Lion Man I haven’t seen him (yet) as he’s in a different museum collection, but I did see a couple of cave lion figurines at Tübingen and an amazing cave lion head at Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart 🤩

6-string-theory.bsky.social•98 days ago

1st Ice Age guy: "Nice horse sculpture."
2nd Ice Age guy: "Huh, I guess it does look like a horse. It's really a bottle opener."
1st Ice Age guy: "A what, now?"

wyl.bsky.social•100 days ago

You know the way we talk to ourselves as we work away on certain tasks during our day? Possibly sing, or overthink a discussion we had with a loved one.
I always wonder what they did, considering they didn't talk as we do, when they were creating these objects.

🤔

northumberart.bsky.social•100 days ago

It's beautiful. So sensitive and graceful- I can feel the respect, if not reverence, of the maker for the subject.

alisonfisk.bsky.social•100 days ago

Absolutely! 👌

justj1.bsky.social•99 days ago

Remarkable skill, beautiful

tudorinjordan.bsky.social•99 days ago

thanks for posting this. . . where are you based? we're in the UK, Amsterdam and Jordan. . .and I'm just reawakening my interest in studying again. . .

tudorinjordan.bsky.social•99 days ago

wow. . . I'm becoming fascinated about the link between human geography and archeology . . . the evolution of the hunter-gatherers into settled farmers. . . I have a small piece of land in Jordan, above the Dead Sea (the SW Fertile Crescent) this is where it all began!!