Hey there,
because i recently learned and posted about the The tallest Statue in the world i wondered what was the smallest statue, which you can see in my previous Post The smallest Statue in the World.
My curiosity kicked in an so I wanted to know what is the oldest Statue in the World???
With this said, I guess my series of unique statues of the World continues here.
This is what i came across with.
Apparently the oldest, or one of the oldest Statue, was discovered in Germany. More precisely near Asselfingen in the Swabian Jura in a cave named Hohlenstein-Stadel.
Here a picture of what the Cave looks like.
The first excavations at Hohlenstein were made in 1861 by Oskar Fraas, geologist and paleontologist, who was searching for cave bear bones at the Bärenhöhle and the Stadel. He returned in 1866, realizing the archeological importance of the site.
source: wikipedia.org
And in 1993 the "Löwenmensch" was discovered by Otto Völzing and Robert Wetzel. 
source: www.lonetal.net
Unfortunately could they not procced with the excavation because the break out of World War 2. The significant founds were rediscovered in In 1969 by Joachim Hahn. 
DISCOVERY 2.0
The significance of the finds was not discovered until 30 years later in the Ulm Museum. In 1969, Joachim Hahn (1942-1997) came across the packaged fragments while taking an inventory. He noticed traces of carving on numerous fragments and assembled the individual parts into an almost 30 cm tall, fully plastic figure: an upright figure with animal and human features. Four radiocarbon datings of animal bones from the vicinity of the site have so far determined the age of the figure to be around 35-40,000 years ago. Near the statuette, some reindeer throwing rods, several perforated ice fox teeth, ivory pendants and some antler weapon tips came to light, which may have been deposited in connection with the lion-man in the dark rear part of the cave.
source: www.lonetal.net
The Löwenmensch is a German word for Lion-human or Lion-man is mad of mammoth ivory and in my opinion it looks pretty cool!
source: wikipedia.org
source: www.lonetal.net
Radiocarbon dating is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
It is hard to imagine our ancestors to go out and hunt down a mammoth
source: www.theguardian.com
sitting at the fire and carving some Lion-man from mammoth teeth.
source: dienachtderlebendentexte.wordpress.com
If you want to find out more about the Lion-man or where he was found, you should visit the website of lonetal (The Lone Valley). You can find some amazing facts and pictures about this World Heritage. Among other things, you can find an interactive 3D model of the Hohlenstein-cave. You can have a virtual visit and see for your self where the old Lion-man was discovered.
source: www.lonetal.net
I am pretty fascinated by all this! There is a lot more exciting things to find out and I definitely want to learn more about this unique ivory figure.
I hope you enjoyed my post and maybe learned something you didn't know before. Let me know if you have any questions or you want to add some information I forgot to mention.
Thanks for stopping by and keep curious!