19 February 2013

The world's oldest carved human face

Twenty-six thousand years ago in the Czech Republic, one of our ice-age ancestors selected a hunk of mammoth ivory and carved this enigmatic portrait of a woman - the oldest ever found.
From New Scientist.  Photo: Moravian Museum, Anthropos Institute.

4 comments:

  1. In Sister Wendy's The Story of Art, she says something like "Art changes, but it doesn't get better."

    Proof right here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Coincidentally, I was just looking here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/90519713/ceramic-head-primitive-primitive-art?ref=sr_gallery_31&ga_search_query=99heads&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=US&ga_page=2&ga_search_type=all

    ReplyDelete
  3. Seriously, the tusk may be that old... but how do they know it was not carved in the 70's?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Presumably from the associations of the object with others at the same site:

      http://www.archaeologywordsmith.com/lookup.php?category=&where=headword&terms=association

      Delete

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