The Lion-Man: The Oldest Confirmed Statue Ever Discovered
Lion-man – the oldest confirmed statue ever discovered
The Löwenmensch figurine, carved from mammoth ivory around 40,000 years ago, is the oldest confirmed statue ever found. Discovered in a German cave in 1939, it combines a human body with a cave lion's head. After decades of reconstruction, it now stands 31.1 cm tall and is displayed at Museum Ulm. Its creation would have taken over 370 hours of skilled work, sparking debates about its meaning and the society that made it.
Unless the sculpture was created slowly at odd moments over several months, someone as skilled as an artist may have been excused from other subsistence tasks to work specially on this piece.