Ice age art cracks heritage nod

WARSAW: The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) yesterday named as a World Heritage Site a group of caves in Germany that contain the world’s oldest ice age artwork.

According to Unesco’s world heritage committee, the six caves located in the Swabian Alps of south-western Germany contain the earliest artwork representing figures, and provide important knowledge of how art developed.

Among the archaeological finds in the caves was the 40 000-year-old human figurine Venus of Hohle Fels. Since the 1860s, excavations in the caves have produced numerous figurines from as long as 43 000 years ago, including representations of mammoths, lions, horses and musical instruments, as well as female figures and animal-human hybrids.

The finds are among the oldest evidence of artistic activity by early humans.

Cultural experts and historians are meeting until July 12 in southern Poland to decide the status of more than 30 sites nominated to the World Heritage List. – dpa