Lion Man History

Compared to man, animals have been on this world for as long as history (and prehistory) can recall. These animals provided ancient people their livelihood, an occupation, source of food, transportation, and other valuable resources. Besides their functional purposes, animals were worshipped and revered--and throughout history is exhibited in the art produced, creating a connection between all the different cultures and time periods. Animals have been represented through history from realistic to mythological, and provide us new points of view into our own humanity. A look into the sculptures of the Lion Man of Hohlenstein Stadel of ca 30,000 BCE, the Eagle Headed Deity of ca 9th century BCE, and the Figurine of the Goddess Bastet as a Cat of ca 712 BCE, reveals the human-animal relationships portrayed in art. That although animals in art could just be animals with no greater

The sculpture was found in separate pieces, and it was only in 1998 that this carving was fully assembled and restored. The subject of the piece is of a composite creature of a feline-headed human figure, that stands 11-inches tall, that was believed to even represent a shaman or sorcerer. The Lion Man was carved out of mammoth ivory; and for this time period, the process to create this piece was quite laborious of splitting the tusk, using a flint blade to scrape and incise details (such as the striations on the arm and the muzzle), and using powdered hematite to polish the final piece. The sculpture was created to be viewed in-the-round and appears to be freestanding, but due to poor preservation we are unable to tell if it really is freestanding. As for functionality, sculpture was a less common practice during Prehistoric times, but due to its mobility aspect it was believed to hold totemic