We all remember the summer of 1939 because in its last stage, on September 1, the Second World War broke out. But history and art buffs have an extra reason to pay special attention to that season, as just six days earlierGermany revealed to the world something more than his almighty Wehrmacht:a small statuette which represented a rare case of theriomorphism . It was the Löwenmesch u Lion Man of Ulm .
The authors of the discovery were the German archaeologists Robert Wetzel and Otto Völzing , who unearthed the piece in the Hohlenstein-Stadel grotto , in the state of Baden-Württemberg, with a quite different appearance than it does today, since it was decomposed into two hundredpieces .
However, it seemed clear that it was something exceptional due to the fact that it represented an anthropomorphic figure, since this type of representation had only been seen in cave paintings , never in sculpture.
Despite the sensational nature of the case, the international situation prevailed. The war began and cultural activity had to give way to war, especially in the country that unleashed it and on whose soil it ended. So the Lion Man was forgotten for thirty years until, in 1969, taking inventory, it was rediscovered by Joachim Hahn.
Recomposing the puzzle, he obtained as a result a figure carved in a tusk of mammoth ivory using a flint knife, 39.6 centimeters and whose chronological dating placed it in the Aurignacian (Upper Paleolithic).
The interpretation of its meaning It turned out -and turns out- to be more complex, obviously. A primeval deity? A shaman in disguise? There is not even certainty that it is male . As I said before, similar theriomorphic representations had been seen in cave paintings but several more examples were yet to be discovered that would come later, so the statuette was also unique in antiquity, with its 32,000 years.
It ceased to be unique later in every way, because in another cave in Baden-Württemberg several zoomorphic figurines, a venus and a new smaller lion-man appeared. .
In 1997 the specialists Ute Wolf and Elisabeth Schmidt They undertook a new restoration, putting together more loose parts that had been found, especially the head, which allowed to clear up the doubt as to whether it might not correspond to a bear instead of a lion . It also seemed to point more to being a woman , according to a triangular sheet in the crotch, a fold of the abdomen and the stylization of the general forms. The absence of mane is not significant because it never appears in representations of prehistoric felines.
However, it seems difficult to conclude that work, since more and more pieces have been found in the cave to add. They appeared in 2010 and 2011 thanks to a team led by Claus-Joachim Kind , proceeding once again to reassemble the set.
Not an easy task because these fragments are close to a thousand and tiny. With them, the Lion man has increased his height and already exceeds 31 centimeters . He has also grown older; the latest dates give it 40,000 years , several thousand more than before.