A statue of a creature with a human body and a lion's head was found in 1939 by archaeologists in Germany. Made from mammoth ivory, the statue is considered one of the oldest known sculptures in the world. After carrying out radiocarbon analysis, the age of the lion man was determined at 32 thousand years.
During excavations in the early 1930s at a place called Stadel im Hohlenstein in the Lonetal Valley in the Swabian Mountains near the city of Ulm, German archaeologists discovered a cave system with many prehistoric artifacts. In 1937, Professor Robert Wetzel began to conduct systematic archaeological excavations and on August 25, 1939, he discovered hundreds of fragments of the "lion man" figurine.
The excavations were interrupted due to the outbreak of the Second World War. Without any scientific analysis, the find was handed over to the museum's warehouse. Thirty years later, in 1969, Professor Joachim Hahn, while compiling a list of artifacts in the museum, noticed the similarities between the fragments and guessed that they were fragments of a figurine. He carried out the restoration work, making a figure from two hundred fragments. In 1997-1998, Elisabeth Schmidt discovered the missing fragments of the figurine, found back in 1939, and carried out restoration work. After this artifact was restored and identified, in one of the caves in the same region of Germany, archaeologists discovered another similar figurine of a smaller size.
The find in southern Germany amazes scientists around the world. The statue of Narasimha, the lion-man, made of mammoth tusk (shaped like a human body with a lion's head) dates back to 32,000 years. This discovery is the focus of archaeological circles in Europe. In 1930-35, around the excavations in the area of the Lonetal valley near Ulm, a German scientist found a huge cave system with many prehistoric artifacts in it: statues (images) of birds, horses, turtles, lions, as well as a statue of Narasimha - a combination of a man and a lion. This Narasimha murti is very outstanding and unique, it was used for rituals, unlike other objects. Murti was discovered at the site of a cave about 20 meters from the entrance and 1.2 meters underground.
From the point of view of Vedic culture (ancient culture of India), Vishnu appeared in the divine human form of a lion to protect his devotees. His description in the Agama Silpa Shastra is called Kevala Narasimha. In India, many ancient temples of Sri Bhagavan Narasimha are still in special places, on high mountain peaks or in caves. The find confirms the ancient stories from the Puranas, where Hiranyakashipa almost achieved immortality and could not be killed by man, but Vishnu appeared.
This murti is part of the world Vedic civilization and makes us think deeply about our ancestors and ancient times and the truth of the "modern view of history."