![]() Carved at some point (opinions differ) between the 4th and 2nd Centuries BC, it once topped a tomb in the coastal city of Knidos in south-west Turkey. We met in the Great Court, beside the so-called Lion of Knidos, a colossal marble beast from the Hellenistic era. Recently, one of Cook’s colleagues, St John Simpson, an archaeologist and Near East specialist, took me on a whistle-stop tour of the museum’s most celebrated ancient lions. In other words, this isn’t a man wearing a mask. “So, this creature is alert, and in front of the ear, you can see the auditory canal. “That furrow is formed by the muscles contracting when a lion pricks its ears to listen,” Cook continues. ![]() “Incredibly original, technically brilliant, and with this extraordinary spiritual power.”Īs Cook explains, the artistry of the sculpture is special: the calves of the figure, which appears to be standing on tiptoes, are, she says, “beautifully turned”, while behind one ear, we can see a “little furrow”. “It is a masterpiece,” says Jill Cook, the exhibition’s curator, and an expert on Ice Age art. Painstakingly reconstructed, it is known today simply as ‘The Lion Man’. Its fragments were discovered in a cave in south-west Germany during the 20th Century. ![]() The evidence for this is an ivory sculpture, 31cm (12.2in) tall, depicting a hybrid creature, with a human body and a lion’s head, carved from the tusk of a mammoth 40,000 years ago. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |