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Ashapurna Archi Prof.Stefan HIS 101 The swimming reindeer - A masterpiece of Ice Age art

The image above shows the tip of a mammoth tusk carved as two reindeer, depicted one behind the other, around 13,000 years ago, from the rock shelter of Montastruc, France. The swimming reindeer; a masterpiece of Ice Age art, part of Asahi Shimbun Displays ‘Objects in Focus’, has recently been on view in Room 3 in the British Museum. The exhibit attracted 79,000 visitors.First published in the British Museum Magazine Winter 2009. As well as finding the expected flint tools and animal bones, he discovered two reindeer carved from mammoth ivory which together form the largest known and most remarkable masterpiece of late Ice Age art.The reindeer, now known to be about 13,000 years old, were published and first put on public exhibition as two separate pieces at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867. They caused a sensation and were recognised as three-dimensional figurative art older than any such sculpture known from the presumed cradles of art history - Egypt, Greece or Rome. A male reindeer follows a smaller female. Their heads are up, nostrils flared, ears back and their antlers rest along their backs. The attitude of their heads and the way their legs are extended suggests the animals are swimming.The female reindeer is worked in extraordinary detail so the markings on her face and coat, as well as her eyelashes, ribs and nipples are defined. She is also marked with ten oval incisions on each side. These were the last marks to be drawn. The composition takes advantage of the tapering form and curvature of the tip of a tusk which, judging from its size, was probably from either a young or female mammoth. A new publication 'The Swimming Reindeer' by Jill Cook will be available in May 2010 at the British Museum. It details its discovery and dating, and explores the artistic techniques used to create it, its potential meanings and importance....