Anonymous – Indonesia, (35,400 years old)
-
female babirusa or “pig-deer”
- (figurative depiction #1)
- 35,400 year-old parietal drawing
- nose to tail, drawing is 39 in. (99.1 cm.) wide
- Leang Timpuseng cave, southwestern Sulawesi, Indonesia
-
Editor’s Note:
This is an enhanced tracing of the above drawing of a pig-deer. Click it to see an animated overlay of the original drawing and the tracing.
-
female babirusa or “pig-deer”
- (figurative depiction #2)
- 35,400 year-old parietal drawing
- nose to tail, drawing is ~37 in. (~93.9 cm.) wide
- Leang Timpuseng cave, southwestern Sulawesi, Indonesia
About the Artist:
Anonymous parietal drawings made 35,400 years ago. This figurative representation of a female babirusa or “pig-deer” resides on the ceiling of Leang Timpuseng cave in the southwestern peninsula of Sulawesi, Indonesia.
The two female babirusa shown above and a variety of other images were first discovered in the limestone caves of Sulawesi in the 1950s. They had previously been thought to date back only 10,000 years.
The babirusa (figurative depiction #1) has recently been dated using the uranium-thorium (UTh) method. The results show that this animal drawing was created approximately 35,400 years ago. It is therefore one of the oldest dated naturalistic representational drawings in the world. [DES-03/19]
Additional information:
- A modern female babirusa or “pig-deer” which is actually a pig — Family: Suidae, Genus: Babyrousa with four distinct modern species.
- Babirusa at Wikipedia
- M. Aubert et al. Nature, v.514. Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia. pages 223-227 (09 October 2014)
- Cave art, art and geometric morphometrics: Shape changes and the babirusa of Sulawesi
- National Geographic – Cave Paintings in Indonesia Redraw Picture of Earliest Art
