This carved head in ivory is eight centimeters high and is dated to about 26,000 BC.

It seems to depict a man with protruding brow ridges, long straight hair and a strong upturned nose and long deeply incised hair.

The smaller piece was a lock of long hair. This lock of hair appeared to have been carved to curve around a staff.
The male head was carved of mammoth ivory dated at 26000 BC and may be a portrait of the person whose skull was found in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1891.

The male ivory head (8 cm tall) allegedly from Dolni Vestonice, Czech Republic. After Schuster/Carpenter – Bahn/Vertut, Journey Through the Ice Age

This bust was discovered in the 1890s in excavations conducted near Dolni Vestonice, in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic.

The male ivory head (8 cm tall) allegedly from Dolni Vestonice, Czech Republic. After Schuster/Carpenter – Bahn/Vertut, Journey Through the Ice Age

The analysis showed that the artifact had been dipped in horse glue, once a common method of preserving bone. The ivory had apparently been shaped with flint tools. Natural cracks, also filled with minerals, crossed the engraved lines, suggesting that weathering had occurred after the piece was carved.

The nostrils and eyes presented a special problem. They appeared to have been cleaned, and even re-carved, and then covered with paraffin.

X-ray diffraction at the Peabody Museum revealed the presence of iron oxides, which give the artifact its reddish brown coloration, and fluorapatite, the result of an exchange between the ivory and minerals in the soil. Both suggest long burial in the ground.

Written by – A. Sutherland  AncientPages.com Senior Staff Writer