The Lion Man
A mammoth ivory figure with a lion's head and a human body — an image of something imaginary.
- When
- Known to
- ± 2 thousand years
- Era
- Late Pleistocene, Quaternary
Carved from a mammoth tusk about 40,000 years ago and found in fragments in Hohlenstein-Stadel cave, the Lion Man stands 31 centimetres tall and would have taken hundreds of hours to make with flint tools. It depicts a being that does not exist. That is the significant part: representing a real animal requires observation, but a therianthrope requires imagining something and expecting others to understand it. It is among the oldest known works of figurative sculpture.