On the Authenticity of Two Presumed Paleolithic Female Figurines from the Art Market
Abstract
:1. Introduction
Provenance of the Figurines and Acquisition History
2. Materials and Methods
- (a)
- Three modern ivory replicas depicting the well-known archaeological figurines of the “horse” (Vogelherd Cave, Germany) [1], the “lion head” (Vogelherd, Germany) [2], and “la dame à la capuche de Brassempouy” (Brassempouy, France) [3]. The figurines were produced by the ivory carver Bernhard Röck in his atelier in Erbach im Odenwald (Germany) with modern tools used to carve ivory (e.g., dental tools). The operational sequence for the manufacture of these ivory figurines included the use of a Dremel (multifunctional tool), gear grinders, a polishing machine, and beeswax on a rotating cotton belt to finish the polishing procedure. With the aim of correlating different types of traces to specific tools used during the carving process, we observed the figurines at two different working stages: before and after polishing.
- (b)
- A tusk piece of a mammoth from the Siberian permafrost from Bernhard Röck’s stock which was cut in half with an Elektra Beckum BAS 500 Metabo band saw Metabo, Nürtingen, Germany.
- (c)
- Two replicas of double and single perforated ivory beads (see examples in [4]) carved with stone tools by the Archaeotechnician Rudolf Walter at the University of Tübingen.
- (d)
- Six worked archaeological ivory pieces: two broken ivory points, three ivory rods, and a single perforated ivory bead from the Aurignacian layers IV and V, respectively, of the cave sites Hohle Fels (Schelklingen, Germany) and Vogelherd (Niederstotzingen, Germany).
2.1. Description of the Two Figurines
2.2. Comparative Findings as Models
3. Results
3.1. Spectroscopic Analysis
3.2. Optical Observations and Production Wear
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
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Wolf, S.; Weiss, R.-M.; Schmidt, P.; Venditti, F. On the Authenticity of Two Presumed Paleolithic Female Figurines from the Art Market. Heritage 2025, 8, 104. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8030104
Wolf S, Weiss R-M, Schmidt P, Venditti F. On the Authenticity of Two Presumed Paleolithic Female Figurines from the Art Market. Heritage. 2025; 8(3):104. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8030104
Chicago/Turabian StyleWolf, Sibylle, Rainer-Maria Weiss, Patrick Schmidt, and Flavia Venditti. 2025. "On the Authenticity of Two Presumed Paleolithic Female Figurines from the Art Market" Heritage 8, no. 3: 104. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8030104
APA StyleWolf, S., Weiss, R.-M., Schmidt, P., & Venditti, F. (2025). On the Authenticity of Two Presumed Paleolithic Female Figurines from the Art Market. Heritage, 8(3), 104. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8030104