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Lion Man from three angles.
Stadel Cave, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, 40,000 years old. © Ulmer Museum.
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The British Museum in London is
currently holding an exhibition entitled ‘Living with Gods’ which runs until 8th
April 2018. Among the exhibits on show is a remarkable carved figurine called
Lion Man which is on loan from the Umber Museum in Germany.
The Lion Man sculpture found in
Stadel Cave, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, made from mammoth ivory, has been
described as a masterpiece. It is 40,000 years old providing the oldest known
evidence of religious belief. It stands 31 centimetres tall and has the head of
a cave lion with a partly human body. This is the oldest known depiction of a
being that does not exist in physical form but symbolises ideas about the
supernatural. In 2017, UNESCO acknowledged Stadel Cave as a World Heritage
Site.
Found in 1939, scholars believe
that the Lion Man makes sense as part of a story that might now be called a
myth. The wear on his body caused by handling suggests that he was passed
around and rubbed, perhaps, as part of some ritual. An experiment using the same sort of stone
tools available in the Ice Age indicates that Lion Man took more than 400 hours
to make.
Archaeological discoveries in
other caves in this region include small sculptures often found with large amounts
of stone tools and animal bones that indicate people lived in the shelter of
the daylight areas of these sites. Hybrid creatures, half-man and half-beast
also appear in cave drawings in France.
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The Lion Man. Stadel Cave,
Baden-Württemberg, Germany, 40,000 years old. The oldest known evidence of
religious belief in the world. © Ulmer Museum.
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Lion Man may represent a shaman
whose preferred costumes were often hides of the more dangerous Ice Age
animals. A shaman is a person who acts as intermediary between the natural and
supernatural worlds, using magic to cure illness, predict the future and
control otherworldly forces. From ancient times, the lion has been viewed as a
symbol of the masculine virtues of courage and strength. Shamans still exist
today in the Amazon region and Australia.
Stadel Cave, where the Lion Man
was found, is different. It faces north and does not get the sun. It is cold,
and the concentration of debris accumulated by human activities is much less
than at other sites. Lion Man was found in a dark inner chamber, carefully put
away in the darkness with only a few perforated arctic fox teeth and a cache of
reindeer antlers nearby. Archaeologists
think that Stadel Cave was used as a place where people would come together occasionally
around a fire to share a particular understanding of the world expressed
through beliefs, symbolised in sculpture, and acted out in rituals.
Many fragments were overlooked in
the cave when the pre-war dig was abruptly terminated due to the outbreak of
World War 11. However, archaeologists
have recently discovered previously unknown fragments of the figurine and are
piecing it back together. This work has prompted some experts to
question if, perhaps, the 40,000-year-old statue represents a female shaman?
Scientists hope to resolve a decades-long debate.
Those who believe that Lion Man
is in fact a woman are convinced that primitive societies were matriarchal. An
image of a 14,000-year-old human body with an animal head discovered in the Las
Caldas cave in Spain is obviously female. The head looks like that of an ibex,
while the lower part of the body is clearly female.
Prehistoric religion reflected
people’s need to understand the world and explain disasters. Through rituals
and offerings, ancient societies sought to bribe or appease the divine forces
controlling the world or its individual components. Since Neanderthal times,
people have practised rites that showed concern for their dead, perhaps linked
to a belief in an afterlife.
These new revelations offer a
greater insight into the mind of the prehistoric sculptor, who created the
figure some 40,000 years ago. His ancestors had migrated to Europe, which had
been controlled by the Neanderthals, shortly before.
Lion Man has provided us with at
least some insight into religious belief and practice 40,000 years ago. We can
never hope to understand the mindset of these ancient people, but the
significance of this tiny figurine is clear from the sheer number of hours it
would have taken to make it. It is worth pondering that this work was
undertaken at a time when our early ancestors would have struggled simply to
survive during harsh climatic conditions.
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