Image Credit: Wuselig, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The oldest known sculpture of a horse is a ivory carving known as the Vogelherd Horse, found in Germany. It is estimated to have been carved 33,000 years ago.
Like so many of the pieces we first played with in our carpet herds, all of the legs are broken off.
It’s about Stablemate sized, and was found among carved figures of mammoth, bisons, and lions, in a cave where it appears animals were butchered after a hunt. There are also paintings on the cave walls.
Just like us, they made friends to go with their horses.
It’s unlikely this was the first horse made, of course. Generations of people created carving tools, and practiced for thousands of hours over their lifetimes, passing on their techniques to a new generation, in order to produce a piece like this.
Surely from the very first person who saw a horse, there was an urge to draw it, and sculpt it, and capture the essence of the memory.
The desire to make and keep tiny sculptures of horses is as old as humanity itself. Never forget.
Early art like this has a soft spot in my heart; my favorite art history classes focused on things like it. And a few hobby artists have made sculptures inspired by cave drawings and carvings like this one! I love those.