GoKawiilLion Man statue confirmed as world's oldest known figurative sculpture
The Lion Man, a mammoth-ivory figurine combining human and feline features found in fragments at Germany's Hohlenstein-Stadel cave in 1939, has been reassembled and dated as the oldest confirmed statue ever discovered. Excavation and reconstruction spanned decades, interrupted by World War II, with major restorations in 1987 and 2012 using newly recovered fragments and virtual simulations to piece together the roughly 40,000-year-old figure.