The Dolní Vestonice Portrait Head is just 2 inches tall and 1 inch wide. It’s a tiny face carved into an ivory mammoth tusk, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in significance. Uncovered in the 1920s in the South Moravian region of the Czech Republic, the figure, which dates back 26,000 years, is thought to be the oldest known personal portrait.
During the late Paleolithic Period, a group of mammoth-hunting ancient humans set up camp in the Dolní Věstonice region of what is now the Czech Republic, and this specimen is a representation of the culture that took place there. The portrait head seems to show a woman with engraved eyes and other individualized features and a face that tells us a story.
What Is the Dolní Věstonice Portrait Head?
It’s generally rare to find portraits from this time period, says Jill Cook, curator at the British Museum. It’s a slightly more abstract form of a portrait, but it’s interesting because the subject isn’t meant to be portrayed as beautiful. Her hair was either drawn up in a bun on the top of her head or covered with a piece of cloth.
The oval face, shapely turned-up nose, full lips, and eyes are portrayed as uneven, a detail which leaves us to wonder why. The right eye is beautifully carved with an eyelid and an open eye and pupil, but the left eye is slightly larger, and instead of a similar eyelid, it appears to be drooping on one side.
“As you look more closely, it looks like there’s a faint irregularity on the left side of the face,” says Cook. “It would appear that the left eye is closed, which may be a sign of a congenital abnormality or perhaps an accident that damaged the eye, or a sort of palsy or stroke.”
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Representing Ancient Society
There was a clear choice to present someone who had some sort of abnormality, which could mean a number of things, says Cook. It could show this society’s humanity and an element of a uniquely human relationship or that of kindness. This was a group that cared for its people, which included those with injuries, those who needed to be cared for to get better, or those who had a lifelong disability.
“This was a person who needed help in life,” says Cook.
It could also be the opposite, that this person was an outcast as was sometimes how those with disabilities would have been portrayed in certain societies. “They could be feared [not revered] for their differences,” says Cook. It’s hard to know. But what is clear is that this was a person that this civilization wanted to represent through art.
The portrait could also be showing us how hard this world might have been so long ago. When the Dolní Věstonice Portrait Head was made, the average lifespan of an ancient human was just 30 years to 40 years. Living in the elements without healthcare meant that infant mortality was common and, if there was an injury, one might never recover from it.
There’s also a lot that we don’t know because this was excavated over a century ago. It wasn’t found in a burial, though it was found near the location of a burial that held the bones of a woman of similar age. But it also wasn’t excavated as carefully as it would have been today, so it’s possible that some clues about what was found were missed.
The portrait leaves us with as many questions as it provides answers, but one thing is clear: even all those years ago, humans dealt with issues and hardships; you can see it in her face.
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Sara Novak is a science journalist based in South Carolina. In addition to writing for Discover, her work appears in Scientific American, Popular Science, New Scientist, Sierra Magazine, Astronomy Magazine, and many more. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia. She’s also a candidate for a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University, (expected graduation 2023).
