The community of Asselfingen has a new landmark - or rather six. Only the lighting is still missing, which will put the stelae in the right light even in the dark by illuminating them from a distance of one meter.
Asselfingen, "home town" of the unique Ice Age lion man figure due to the Hohlenstein cave, has erected three lion man sculptures at 30 meter intervals at each of its two entrances.
The design, the CAD free-form surfaces and construction as well as the mold construction came from Unterelchingen from the company BUSSE Design+Engineering. The components were then laminated and manufactured by the Niederstotzing company Waltl Prototypen.
The region wants to focus more on its Ice Age heritage; the Paleolithic lion man has now also become a symbol of the Swabian Alb as a tourist region. Asselfingen wants to establish itself as an Ice Age community - even though the original lion man - the approximately 40,000-year-old Ice Age work of art that represents the oldest known man-made hybrid of man and animal - is located in the Ulm Museum. For the lion man, presumably once used as a cultic figure, was found in fragments in the karst cave Hohlenstein-Stadel on the territory of Asselfingen, not far from the hamlet of Lindenau.
Funded by a Leader project, the new sculptures serially address the elaboration of the Ice Age figure from a mammoth tusk in a contemporary manner and with contemporary materials:
The first figure in each case, as one approaches Asselfingen, shows in stylized form a still clearly recognizable ivory tusk, from the tip of which the head and shoulders of the lion-man figure already appear carved out. In sculpture two, the lion-man already has exposed paws, but its entire lower half from the navel onward is still in the sculpture's "mammoth tusk."
The third sculpture in each case shows the completely carved out ice age artificial figure, even the tip of the tusk, which is still visible on the first two sculptures, is missing. In the course of the redesign of Asselfingen's town center, the Lion Man is to receive another honor in the foreseeable future, according to Asselfingen's mayor Armin Bollinger: The square in the town center near the listed St. Pantaleon Church is to be signposted as "Lion Man Square" in the coming year.
