Baden-Württemberg05.01.2018The Lion Man stars in British Museum exhibition
When the British Museum opens its new blockbuster exhibition, Living with gods: peoples, places and worlds beyond (November 2 to April 8, 2018), one of the highlights will be the Lion Man. This small figure stands just one foot (30cm) high and two inches (5cm) wide. Although the body is human, the limbs and head are those of a lion. It was carved from woolly mammoth ivory back in the Ice Age, some 35-40,000 years ago. And that makes it one of the world’s oldest-known examples of figurative art. www.britishmuseum.org
The Lion Man was discovered in 1939, in a cave in the rolling hills southeast of Stuttgart, in the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg. According to Jill Cook, the British Museum’s Keeper of Britain, Europe and Prehistory, who curates the exhibition, “The Lion Man is a masterpiece… His gaze, like his stance, is powerful and directed at the viewer….The wear on his body caused by handling suggests that he was passed around and rubbed as part of a narrative or ritual that would explain his appearance and meaning.”
The Lion Man (Löwenmensch in German) also features in a new BBC Radio 4 series, Living with the Gods, which complements the British Museum exhibition. Presented by the former British Museum Director Neil MacGregor, the 30-part, six week series begins on October 23 – and the first programme focuses on the Lion Man. www.bbc.co.uk/corporate2/mediacentre/latestnews/2017/living-with-the-gods-october
The timing of this series could not be better. Earlier in 2017, UNESCO awarded World Heritage Site status to the Caves and Ice Age Art in Southwest Germany’s Swabian Alb. Some of Europe’s earliest humans settled in these limestone caves some 43,000 years ago. Excavations over the past 150 years have revealed carved animal figures, simple musical instruments and even jewellery. But the most significant is the little Lion Man of the Hohlenstein-Stadel, on loan to the British Museum from Ulm.
Even without the Lion Man, this beautiful, historic city has much to offer. There are more Ice Age treasures in the museum’s outstanding collection; the minster boasts the world’s tallest spire (161.5 m/530 ft); the canals are lined with picturesque medieval houses. www.ulmer-museum.ulm.de
Around Ulm, the unspoiled countryside is home to SouthWest Germany’s newest UNESCO heritage sites: the Lonetal, the valley of the River Lone and the Achtal, the Ach valley. Here, in the town of Blaubeuren, the Prehistoric Museumdisplays Palaeolithic objects from nearby caves: the Venus of the Hohe Fels; a bird; carvings of a horse's head. And treasures are still being found, such as flutes carved from the bones of birds and mammoths. Discovered in the Geisenklösterle cave, they are proof that music has been important to human beings for at least 30,000 years. www.urmu.de
Whether you are a buff or a budding archaeologist, the Vogelherd Archäopark, near Niederstotzingen, is a must – an outdoor family-oriented park with two small caves. Artworks discovered here include 11 carved bone figures and a tiny 40,000-year-old ivory horse. www.archaeopark-vogelherd.de
SouthWest Germany’s UNESCO sites: www.tourism-bw.com/Kultur/UNESCO-World-Heritage-Sites
Photo: Landratsämter Alb-Donau und Heidenheim
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