Resembling Candy, This “Bear” Dates Back Thousands of Years and Was Designed to Shield Hunters

A bear made from Amber several thousand years ago was used as a protective amulet by hunters.

Sculpture, an ancient art

Sculpture is one of the oldest forms of art. According to historians, sculpture, which was carried out with natural materials, such as wood, stone or bones, dates back 40,000 years ago. One of the best known is the Venus de Willendorf, which is a small limestone figurine which represents a woman, and which would be the symbol of fertility.

Before having to be something aesthetics or artistic, the sculptures essentially played a ritual or symbolic role. In many civilizations, they represented gods that the populations venerated, but also kings. A sculpture, very different from the others, was discovered more than a century ago.

An amber bear

“Słupcio”, or “Small sway of Słupsk” in Polish “, is a figurine representing a bear. Discovered in 1887 by workers in northern Poland, this sculpture would have been manufactured during the European Mesolithic, between 9600 and 4100 BC. It was made of amber, a fossil resin of vegetable origin, which brings it an appearance of gebox.

LiveScience tells us that “słupcio”, name given by a praise of Polish kindergarten who won the competition aimed at give his name to this object, has become a real local symbol, to such a point that miniature representations are available for purchase, as a memory. The original sculpture, on the other hand, is exhibited at the National Museum of Szczecin, about 220 kilometers southwest of its original discovery place, according to the English media.

An object that served as protection?

After his discovery, the experts issued the hypothesis, after having observed a hole in the middle of the torso of the bear, indicating that the figurine was used as an amulet, which aimed to protect the hunter-chip which wore it, since the bear was the most powerful and most dangerous animal present in the region at that time.

A belief that could be found in the old Babylon, where cylinders of clay were used in precious stones were used to protect themselves from evil spirits, or among the Romans, who collected statues of Priape, who in their belief was the god of luck and fertility, and that they used to protect themselves from bad luck and undesirable visitors.

Source: LiveSciencece