HOHLENSTEIN-STADEL
One of the earliest sculptures
discovered yet is an extraordi-
nary ivory statuette (FIG. 1-4),
which may date back as far as
30,000 BCE. It was found in frag-
ments inside a cave at Hohlen-
stein-Stadel in Germany and
has been meticulously restored. Carved out of mammoth ivory and
nearly a foot tall—a truly huge image for its era—the statuette repre-
sents something that existed only in the vivid imagination of the un-
known sculptor who conceived it. It is a human (whether male or fe-
male is debated) with a feline head. Such composite creatures with
animal heads and human bodies (and vice versa) were common in
the art of the ancient Near East and Egypt (compare, for example,
FIGS. 2-10,right,and 3-36). In those civilizations, surviving texts usu-
ally allow historians to name the figures and describe their role in
contemporary religion and mythology. But for Stone Age representa-
tions, no one knows what their makers had in mind. The animal-
headed humans of Paleolithic art sometimes have been called sorcer-
ers and described as magicians wearing masks. Similarly, Paleolithic
human-headed animals have been interpreted as humans dressed up
as animals. In the absence of any Stone Age written explanations—
this is a time before writing, before (or pre-) history—researchers can
only speculate on the purpose and function of a statuette such as that
from Hohlenstein-Stadel.
Art historians are certain, however, that these statuettes were
important to those who created them, because manufacturing an
ivory figure, especially one a foot tall, was a complicated process.
First, a tusk had to be removed from the dead animal by cutting into
the ivory where it joined the head. The sculptor then cut the tusk to
the desired size and rubbed it into its approximate final shape with
sandstone. Finally, a sharp stone blade was used to carve the body,
limbs, and head, and a stone burin (a pointed engraving tool) to
incise (scratch) lines into the surfaces, as on the Hohlenstein-Stadel
creature’s arms. All this probably required at least several days of
skilled work.
VENUS OF WILLENDORF The composite feline-human
from Germany is exceptional for the Stone Age. The vast majority of
prehistoric sculptures depict either animals or humans. In the earliest
art, humankind consists almost exclusively of women as opposed to
men, and the painters and sculptors almost invariably showed them
nude, although scholars generally assume that during the Ice Age
both women and men wore garments covering parts of their bodies.
When archaeologists first discovered Paleolithic statuettes of women,
they dubbed them “Venuses,” after the Greco-Roman goddess of
beauty and love, whom artists usually depicted nude (FIG. 5-62). The
nickname is inappropriate and misleading. It is doubtful that the Old
Stone Age figurines represented deities of any kind.
One of the oldest and the most famous of the prehistoric female
figures is the tiny limestone figurine of a woman that long has been
known as the Venus of Willendorf(FIG. 1-5) after its findspotin Aus-
tria. Its cluster of almost ball-like shapes is unusual, the result in part
of the sculptor’s response to the natural shape of the stone selected for
carving. The anatomical exaggeration has suggested to many that this
and similar statuettes served as fertility images. But other Paleolithic
stone women of far more slender proportions exist, and the mean-
ing of these images is as elusive as everything else about PaleolithicPaleolithic Art 171-4Human with feline head,
from Hohlenstein-Stadel,
Germany, ca. 30,000–28,000 BCE.
Mammoth ivory, 11–^58 high.
Ulmer Museum, Ulm.
One of the oldest known sculp-
tures is this large ivory figure
of a human with a feline head.
It is uncertain whether the work
depicts a composite creature or a
human wearing an animal mask.
1-5Nude woman (Venus of Willendorf), from Willendorf, Austria,
ca. 28,000–25,000 BCE. Limestone, 4^1 – 4 high. Naturhistorisches
Museum,Vienna.
The anatomical exaggerations in this tiny figurine from Willendorf are
typical of Paleolithic representations of women, whose child-bearing
capabilities ensured the survival of the species.1 in.1 in.1-5A Head of
a woman,
Brassempouy,
ca. 25,000–
20,000 BCE.