OLDEST HORSE CARVING IN THE WORLD WAS CARVED 32 THOUSAND YEARS AGO

For millennia, horses were an integral part of human existence, even before their domestication and use. The earliest humans hunted the wild horses that once roamed Europe and Asia. The horses were immortalised in cave drawings as a noteworthy and valuable food source, most notably in the prehistoric Lascaux caves. But horses were painted by even earlier artists. About 32,000 years ago, the earliest horse sculpture made by modern humans is known to exist.

The magnificent statue was sculpted from an old mammoth's tusk. It is barely 1 inch tall and less than 2 inches wide. The horse's four legs have been lost to time and the elements, but its head is still whole. Its nostril indent is still discernible, delicately sculpted. The top of the tail, the ears, and the mouth are all visible and remarkably lifelike. The horse was found in southwest Germany's Vogelherd Cave in the mountains. Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura is the name given to these caves as a UNESCO World Heritage site. These were among the earliest settlements made by contemporary humans when they arrived in Europe 43,000 years ago.

These ancient people left behind figurines and drawings in their caves. There are carvings of bison, lions, and mammoths. Cross markings and other small details are among the figurines' details. These figurines were carved by members of the Aurignacian culture, which flourished in the Upper Paleolithic. The cave was probably used by the hunter-gatherers to process their prey, particularly horses and reindeer. The discovery of hunted animal bones provided hints about the diet of prehistoric humans. The horse figurine, which was made thousands of years before horses were domesticated, is a tribute to this valuable food source. The statue, albeit incomplete, represents the earliest known human representation of a horse and showcases some of the earliest artists in history.