The lovers of Ain Sakhri
The Lovers of Ain Sakhri is a sculpture about ten centimeters high, made of calcite , which shows a couple having sexual intercourse. It is around 11,000 years old, making it the oldest surviving figurative representation of human coitus . The object is on display in the British Museum in London.
Find history
The figure was discovered in 1933 by René Neuville , a French consul in Jerusalem, while investigating accidental finds in a small museum of French monks in Bethlehem. Neuville managed to get in touch with the Bedouins who had made their finds in Wadi Khareitoun and who also led him to one of the caves of ʿAin Sakhri near Bethlehem . Excavations in Neuville showed that the caves were inhabited by members of the Natufien culture.
After Neuville's death, the sculpture was auctioned at Sotheby’s in 1958 and acquired by the British Museum.
description
The figure was made from a calcite pebble. It shows a couple having sex, the figures being so intertwined that the sexes cannot be recognized; facial features are also absent.
The uniqueness of the figure is that, in addition to the nude, it also shows the primary sexual characteristics: If you look at the figure from above, you can see a pair of female breasts. When viewed from below, a vulva appears and when viewed from the flat side, the figure represents a male member.
Dating
The figure probably comes from the Natufien culture, a culture of the Epipalaeolithic (also Protoneolithic) in the Levant . It has no stratigraphic context, but Garfinkel sees similarities to depictions from Eynan . The assignment to Ain Sachri is also not secured.
interpretation
Because it was found in a residential cave, it is assumed that the figure is not a grave object but a household item.
literature
- Neil MacGregor : A History of the World in 100 Objects (translated by Waltraud Götting et al.), Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62147-5 , pp. 71-76.
- René Neuville, Le Paléolithique et le Mésolithique du Desert de Judée. Archives de l'Institut de Paléontologie Humaine. Masson, Paris 1951.
Web links
- Figures of the figurine. British Museum
- Exact dates of the sculpture. British Museum
Individual evidence
- ^ Robert G. Bednarik, The Pleistocene Art of Asia. Journal of World Prehistory 8/4, 1994, p. 355
- ^ Y. Garfinkel: Review by T. Yizraeli-Noy, The Human Figure in Prehistoric Art in the Land of Israel. In: Mitekufat Haeven: Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society / מתקופת האבן, 2001, p. 229
- ↑ britishmuseum.org