The "Lady of Brassempouy" or "Lady with a Hood" was discovered in 1894 by Édouard Piette and Joseph de Laporterie, along with four other mammoth ivory statuettes, in the Pope's Cave in Brassempouy (Landes). Most of them came from the entrance to the cave, as...
The "Lady of Brassempouy" or "Lady with a Hood" was discovered in 1894 by Édouard Piette and Joseph de Laporterie, along with four other mammoth ivory statuettes, in the Pope's Cave in Brassempouy (Landes). Most of them came from the entrance to the cave, as the bottom was far too damp to allow the preservation of mammoth ivory. The prehistorian even described ivory so decomposed that it was liquefied. It was probably just after the excavation that the small mammoth ivory head cracked along the entire length of the right cheek. Indeed, this extremely fragile material, particularly sensitive to differences in humidity, must have dried out too quickly once removed from the cave and disintegrated.
This small female head is fashioned from mammoth ivory, a precious and difficult-to-work raw material. It is sculpted in the round, that is, in three dimensions, and carefully polished. Above a long, graceful neck, the triangular head, with its broad forehead and pointed chin, is framed by a checkered hairstyle, interpreted as braided hair, a shell net, or even a hood. The facial features are simplified and highly stylized. The eyes are absent, but there still seems to be a gaze beneath the brow ridges. Beneath the long, narrow, and flattened nose, the mouth is not depicted. The facial expression is enigmatic and truly unique in prehistoric art. Prehistorians long thought that this small head belonged to a complete statuette. They then hoped to find the body of this lady and sometimes even imagined it. But the small head is practically intact: it is missing only a shard of ivory on the right side of the neck and at the bottom of the hair.
