40,000-Year-Old ‘Lion Man’ Figurine of the Ice Age | Ancient Architects

[@AncientArchitects]

Happy New Year everyone! Brand new content is coming very soon. I’m close to finishing my basement renovations, which will also act as a new workspace for me later this month. I’ll finally be able to do livestreams, Q&As etc. wishing you all the best in 2025, Matt.

[@billmiller4972]

Happy new year! May all your dreams come true in 2025!

[@luisaparodi8571]

Happy New Year and New Basement, Matt!!

[@yellads]

Lion Human? Come on it clearly has what represents a phallus! Drop the wokeness.

[@Balthazare69]

Happy 2025, Ancient Architects to be continued 🎇🎇🎇

[@jameslifetimelearner]

@@yellads Looks like a Venus patch to me. Better Wake up.

[@dougg1075]

In my mind I think how brutal life was for these people , yet they still had the spirit for beautiful art. That cave art is amazing.

[@martinalberter6369]

procrastinating skinning the next mammoth

[@dragonfox2.058]

I'm fascinated with this period when art was so important.

[@AncientArchitects]

Yep, absolutely fascinating

[@dragonfox2.058]

@grigorione Yes, she is very compelling

[@TheImmortalArt]

me too!

[@gora-ji]

Totally what The Clam of the Cave Bear books were about.

[@dragonfox2.058]

@@gora-ji Yeah, I enjoyed those books

[@KingoftheBlackSun]

This has to win the age/adorability ratio contest. Look at that little smile! I love him.

[@wacojones8062]

Thanks!

[@ironcladranchandforge7292]

Fascinating!! Probably worked on at night around the campfire. No TV or video games back then. Many times have I whittled on a stick around a camp fire at night.

[@jorgegonzalez-larramendi5491]

No: this was experienced professional specialized work. Stone tools had to be constantly made, to be fresh, exact, sharp and delicate.... on the ivory l Work in religious semi-trance.

[@primoprima788]

Cool, thanks Ancient Architects ! Happy new Year everyone 👋😎👍

[@AncientArchitects]

Happy New Year!

[@celsus7979]

North 02 makes great videos about life back then 🙂

[@AncientArchitects]

His channel is fantastic!

[@stripeytawney822]

My three faves in this- Ancient Architects. North 02 Dan Davis. Each brings a bit different expertise to our education.

[@lynnmitzy1643]

Thank you Matt 🎉👋🏼happy new year

[@AncientArchitects]

Happy New Year, Lynn!

[@barrywalser2384]

Happy New Year! Thanks Matt!

[@akrim-o]

You are a wonderful person, Happy New Year to you and all your family members

[@citguero1]

Looks like a Human wearing a complete leather/fur of a Lion ,with head included. The Shaman idea sounds correct. Those lines on the arm might be something like a degree amongst the common ones

[@12345678927164]

When they find your secret furry figurine

[@polyoptika4382]

as a shaman, the lion dancer is one of my favorite pieces of art I’ve ever encountered. cloaking in an animal’s skin or wearing parts of it like antlers to represent the animal is a very very old spiritual performance of a power animal relationships. and I do believe it is a dancer, because when you look at it in profile, its feet aren’t carved in a flatfooted or running position. I read an estimate of that it took the better part of a year for one individual to carve if they devoted their waking hours to it, so whether it took 8 months or 8 years to carve, it held great importance. and I do believe that the gods of Egypt and the lion dancer are very strongly related, whether sharing a common origin or convergent ones. yes, I feel that the Egyptian gods are depictions of revered ancestors who had power animals they were cloaked as in their portraits. thus it is possible that the lion dancer, as well as the other lion man could be portraits of a revered ancestor. just my 2 cents as someone who thinks a lot and has also has a shamanic relationship with an ancestor from that time period. my daughter had run across something interesting about the femme figures called Venus’ that I feel strongly corresponds to a shamanic culture that values its ancestors as well as just being logical, which is that the figures are self portraits. it’s striking how many are proportioned exactly like what one sees when one look down at oneself. many many are of femme bodies past their prime, but there are outlier examples of other body types, and at least one Venus is an example of a portrait of another person. they may have been made to be dolls and given to children, or made to be keepsakes. I’ve always found the fertility amulet idea to be strange, personally.

[@aidanmacdougall9250]

Thank you, Happy New Year. Fascinating as always 👍😊

[@phoneguy4637]

Happy New Year, everyone!

[@AncientArchitects]

Happy New Year!

[@jorgegonzalez-larramendi5491]

That's a most important image: Sri Lord Narasimhadeva. He is The Protector, shows various aspects, from terrifying/ugra to nice/lakshmi. ❤. St Michael Archangel. Jaya! Thanks for the documentary. An expert image carver spent hundreds of hours at this work. Must have had a private professional studio, assistants, helpers bringing them all food. And afterwards caring shamans protecting the precious image for many years. *Lord Nr.Singom is way out there, and also in our hearts* : )

[@Womberto]

Thundercats are go!

[@RuneRelic]

"In this time they said that the sun had moved four times from his accustomed place of rising, and where he now sets he had thence twice had his rising, and in the place from whence he now rises he had twice had his setting;" Herodotus. Thats 4x half precessions cycles or 52000 years. Perhaps the cultural memory isnt that far off the mark.

[@jorgegonzalez-larramendi5491]

The time of Lord Ramachandra. You would appreciate the Rāmāyana. Avoid Any abridged versions. Ganguli translated best.

[@freeyourlife3999]

Great. It is displayed in my hometown Ulm.

[@jaspercooper1741]

Beautiful cave art

[@JorgeStolfi]

People in the Paleolithic probably had much more free time than the typical urban dweller today. Hunter-gatherers would normally have had long periods of idleness between hunts and when there is no food to gather. They would be locked up in their caves during storms. Older people, children, and some women would remain behind while the hunters go out hunting.

[@sitindogmas]

they made some beautiful looking art

[@rgerber]

the shading on the cave drawings are impressive- if you compare this to some ancient art

[@sitindogmas]

@rgerber they're beautiful

[@toadelevator]

Until the 6:26 mark, I had assumed this was a 3 or 4 inch item. 31cm is really big!

[@Zeppelin2806]

12.2 inches

[@patriotUSA2007]

I'm also interested in what life was like pre-ice age.

[@harvardarchaeologydept3799]

Well………Ben Franklin wrote the book in 1778 about the yacub story. That story is as about the white race being created in a laboratory in island of patmos in Greece by the black ethiopian scientist named yacub. Those ethiopians had and have huge heads still. But buddy you’d have to get into ethiopian Egypt history and go from there. It’s amazing but hurts some feelings.

[@lyarrastark6254]

Happy New Year, Matt! Thank you for this intriguing video.

[@robertuk444]

Thank you very much!

[@tomdarco2223]

Right on great video

[@heinrichkemmler5695]

All this thundercats and time travel things are...right ! Holy Cat !!!

[@traildoggy]

"You know that guy Ugghh who lives by the big rock?" "I don't think so." "Let me carve him for you..." Some time later --- "Oh, him. Why didn't you just say the guy with a lion's head?"

[@acijami]

It's a lion dude with a piddle bit! More seriously, it's fascinating to see that our respect for big cats has continued for such a long period of time.

[@edkaminski6355]

I did not realize that you had almost 600k subs. Well done! Great content as always.

[@DenofLore]

Yay! One of my fav channels released a Friday aft vid. Nice.

[@nickbrough8335]

Although finds are rate, it seems clear that mankind, at least in Europe was pretty advanced at c45,000 bce whether Sapiens or Neaderthalensis

[@AncientArchitects]

Yeah. I think the weather prevented agriculture and hence large settlements. So it’s no surprise they emerge in the Holocene.

[@nickbrough8335]

@ its a fair comment, but a lot of the world had a relatively mild and reasonably constant climate even during the ice age. Unless data yet to be found comes along, i do wonder if having a more variable climate drove the need to do things differently.

[@krisbruenn1082]

@nickbrough8335 I believe Ragnarok happened about 20,000 BCE, when ice cores indicate atmospheric CO2 below 200 ppm. At that level plants stop growing. The lower Temps could be caused by volcanic eruptions leading to years of winter. The thing about the Ragnarok myth is that it ends with Spring in a new world (a number of megafauna went extinct around 20,000 BCE).

[@Reefer-u6t]

This is amazing! Your video put a big smile on my face.

[@AncientArchitects]

You’re welcome!

[@TomSherwood-z5l]

HISTORY CHANNEL- "IS this evidence that earth was once visited by cat people from outer space?"

[@loisrossi841]

Matt, , that is good news. Great way to start the year.

[@tomardans4258]

The anatomical modeling is exquisite. I’m referring to the cave lion and the horse. There is no crudeness there. The Ancient Greek sculptors would be impressed.

[@TheImmortalArt]

Good video!

[@JimmyBagOfDonuts]

Excellent video!

[@telebubba5527]

Happy New Year Matt and also to everyone else. Hopefully 2025 is going to be a good year for all.🎉🎊

[@ddoherty5956]

Makes you wonder of this religion/ recognition of leadership led to the original lion sphinx's

[@debbralehrman5957]

Thanks👍🏼

[@AtlasReburdened]

Given the length of limbs and torso, it looks a lot more like simply a lion standing on it's hind legs than it looks like hybrid to me.

[@mikesands4681]

Working with a long tube of Ivory, its just simpler to have legs folded flag than sticking out. Probably just lion

[@JustMe-pb9ep]

the lion man is displayed in my hometown, along with one of the oldest flutes. for some these people back then were simple cavemen, but to me they were the inventors of art, music and culture!

[@permabroeelco8155]

If they invented those is probably not the case, they will have inherited these qualities, possibly improving them.

[@tbone1212]

Now we know it was so simple even a cave man could do it.

[@rogerkulpnik]

Another great video.. “They’re GUREAT”!!! I want a lion man statue !!!

[@user-gj9cn7tn5r]

What I see is the cartoon Thunder Cats is a 6000 year old IP.

[@Tony-dp1rl]

Seems pretty odd that they stopped making art for thousands and thousands of years afterward. You would think the concepts and skills would spread and we would find art everywhere.

[@phoneguy4637]

so that's how the lion king was invented... 😊

[@AlbertaGeek]

♪♫...Tale as old as time...♪♫ Oh, wait, that's a different Disney movie.

[@phoneguy4637]

@AlbertaGeek 😅

[@kyledodge5513]

40,000 years ago we were making statues. Makes me wonder if gobekli tepe is just the tip of the iceberg

[@ralphdunn1373]

Shaman always seems to be the best fit for me. I have lived in a few third world countries, for years at a time, and religeon is always first in the minds of the peoples. This seems to be true of all genus Homo, even though we have very little evidence of this. Storytelling and the need for explanations of phenomenon not understood has been a part of our culture for a very long time.

[@BarelyCynical]

For those wondering, like i was for almost the entire video.. it is approx 31cm/12.2in tall 😊

[@TASKConfusion911]

I think it is an image of power. A Man wearing the head and skin of a lion he had killed. Like Hercules!

[@krisbruenn1082]

😊There was another apex predator worthy of respect in that area: the humans we call Neanderthal. Given that they lived in small bands and were big game hunters, it would be easy to see them as "lion humans". So the statues could be totems, used when dealing with the mighty hunters to arrange mammoth hunts. The Neanderthals would cooperate because our weak but clever ancestors could doctor up the hunters' injuries. Many years ago I suggested this to the museum where the big statue is kept. I got pushback from one of the staff, who said there was no evidence that modern humans and Neanderthals overlapped. Of course today we know that they did overlap because of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans.

[@AlbertaGeek]

At the time the statue was estimated to have been made, our "weak" ancestors had already wiped out the Neanderthals.

[@ziggeman]

We dont really know why neanderthals and not homo sapiens are extinct. Maybe neanderthals got covid from humans. We have a large portion neanderthal genes so we are in fact part neanderthals 🙂

[@krisbruenn1082]

@ziggeman modern humans have the characteristic that, when starving, the body consumes both fat and muscle, making the starving human weaker, but also needing less calories to recover when starvation ends. Neanderthals lacked this characteristic, and were 3 times stronger than modern humans. They also had larger brains, which increased their calorie demands. So Neanderthals were more likely to die from famine than modern humans in the same situation. And the shared DNA indicates Neanderthals and modern humans were in the same situation.

[@AlbertaGeek]

@@ziggeman Incorrect. Most humans have little or no Neanderthal DNA.

[@Lightningdvc]

My first thought is how did it look when it was calved? I don’t know how ivory deteriorates over time. Or did it look similar to how it is today?

[@robertclark8279]

Thank you

[@carlworrall]

The romans also use to feature the lion ,there was one found in scotland cramond village.

[@WildBillCox13]

Fascinating.

[@LukeTunkel]

there was also a flute made from a vulture wingbone

[@jamesharrison9741]

Welcome to ancient architects

[@AncientArchitects]

Please subscribe to the channel. 😜

[@jamesharrison9741]

I'm subscribed. I watch and love every video. You're one of my favourite KZbin channels

[@stephenbrewins3689]

I had a mane once.i also had a starter and dessert afterwards.😂

[@ShortbusMooner]

Could it be depiction of a man (shaman) wearing ceremonial garb? Just a thought.. 🤔

[@ciaseven3867]

In Germany it's called "Löwenmensch", which means lionhuman

[@deanharris7149]

Awesome

[@luisaparodi8571]

Can you investigate about Guenol Lioness?

[@VurtAddicted]

How was the statue dated?

[@timbob1145]

Imagine what else is deep beneath the ground and ice etc.

[@toddincabo]

👍 you're welcome very muuuch

[@JoseAntoniocastilhosvolcatovol]

It's a man wearing a lion pelt.

[@hsmd4533]

The man might identify as a lion.

[@JMM33RanMA]

"It looks like X, therefore it is X" is one of the most common sources of human error in most areas, It can be referred to as "Jumping to conclusions" and psychological errors such as pareidolia and apophenia. One of the strengths of this channel, Matt, is that you try to guard against propagating such by mentioning potential errors and previous less reliable assumptions. Your honesty and adherence to scientific methods is commendable and sorely needed in the everything goes to make a buck or get a view by any means internet jungle. Having said that, I have to say that I am just as prone as every human to see shapes in clouds, cracks and rock formations that are not really there. When looking at these figures, I have to wonder about several things. Is the figure wearing something like an animal skin/head cloak or headdress? There are pictures of native American tribal shaman wearing such things. Also, The ears appear to be on top, rather than on the side, so is it possible that the animal is a bear rather than a lion? Thanks again, Matt, for another thought-provoking video.

[@stevemackelprang8472]

With cave lions about, I suspect they had long evenings of sitting around the fire. Carving beats boredom.

[@Joekonda11]

The craftmen of the Wilendorf statue were living in the mountains, the cities were where the oceans and seas are today. 300 only in the Mediterranean, no?

[@zuraorokamono204]

I don't know, it's probably a stupid idea, but I still see a bear standing up.

[@lostpony4885]

Why would lions carve half man statues, weird.

[@Truthnessification]

That's just silly, it's obviously done by the mammoth

[@BluesAlmighty]

Mumford and Sons sang about them 😊

[@GardenLives]

Earth is 4,500,000,000yrs old. This statue is a nice find.

[@douginorlando6260]

Lion Man proves people were fully intelligent, no different than modern people

[@zufalllx]

Or it could just be a doodad. Not everything is holy.

[@8thsinner]

OR, it was a game piece used in atlantis in something similar to what we call chess piece today used to celebrate and study the primitive cultures of the time, it's rudimentary because it was only meant to be fun. Kinda like a school project...only they didn't have school like we do now.

[@rh5563]

Lion man, my arse. That’s a giant short faced bear.

[@justAnotherWaveform]

A Shaman was my first impression

[@WhyIsYoutubeSoTerrible]

First documented Fursona in human history

[@JorgeStolfi]

There have been many cultures in which people (not necessarily just warriors) cosplayed as animals by wearing skins with scalps attached as hood+cape. Aren't there wall paintings in Çatal Höyük seemingly showing hunters dressed in leopard skins?

[@alex-650]

This is the oldest sphinx found yet!

[@medicolegalphysician3044]

Osiris-Asar the Father of Civilization has a constellation dedicated to him. Its called Osiris + Lion = Orion. Every 26,000 years when Osiris-Orion reaches the zenith point (culmination) in the sky on the FALL EQUINOX of THE GREAT YEAR, the SUN is ALWAYS in the constellation of LEO marking Osiris' supreme power and dominion of his kingdom, likened to a Lion, the mighty hunter, king of the jungle. So WE built a Sphynx to memorialize that fact. FACE of MAN, BODY of a LION. The face of the Sphynx is ASAR. The broken noses is so that ASARs' decedents dont REMEMBER their ERASED history.. 40,000 years ago the Sun was inline with the constellation LEO. Therefore the north african black god and chief god of the egyptian mystery schools of thought and bringer of civilization to europe doesn't fit the mainstream narrative of greece, rome, the renaissance and christopher columbus. Great video!

[@AlbertaGeek]

This is a science channel, not a blithering idiocy channel.

[@medicolegalphysician3044]

@AlbertaGeek then you should leave... its called astronomy... the precession of the equinoxes... lol

[@efdangotu]

They are dream spirit guides.

[@yas4435]

TY

[@letyvasquez2025]

They look like lions laying down straight

[@bigbrickwall]

It looks rebuilt pretty significantly, and the original statue in the photo doesn't even look like it had a head. I don't see where the "lion" came from.

[@jrmhrpr]

Could have gotten the idea from a malformed or injured lion that was walking on 2 legs. 🤔

[@HiteshriBansod]

We hear the story of Sri Narashimhadev in Indian scripture, who is described as Half-lion half human , an incarnation of Shri Vishnu The statue may in this way be connected with India. Infact we still have A Lion temple in Munich , southern Germany.

[@lostpony4885]

I object to 400 hours. That estimate lacks knowlege of skills they must have had working with tools we dont use. It has to be less to be practical.

[@carl8703]

The phallus convinces me that, even back then, humans were making lewd furry art of extinct ice age animals.

[@jeffsuderman544]

400 hours to make?! No way, not even half that

[@Ancien]

Look's like a cave bear standing.

[@rachelthompson9324]

did they find Fred Flintstone's pocket knife? I didn't know Fred lost it

[@backupviber6285]

Artifact from Atlantis times 😲

[@AlbertaGeek]

That's funny!

[@gaaradark25]

Es el espiritu del leon, el chaman es poseido por su espiritu y obtiene sus cualidades

[@historybuff7491]

400 hours would be 20 to 25 days, but where does the 400 come from? I don't agree. I don't see the basic shape taking longer than 2 to 3 days. Working on the detail taking 20 days seem way too much. I would agree that it is half the 400 hours. That would still be about 12 days, and that still seems too long.

[@anthonyhettman2506]

My big problem is at that same time Neanderthals where on the planet and sometimes in the same area but whenever there is a find, it’s always attributed to humans just because they have this idea in their head that Neanderthal’s couldn’t have been as smart as us even though they lived on this planet for 300,000 years. How could you not gain intelligence in the same way we did in that huge amount of time I don’t know.