MATTHEW ROZSA: This 45,500-year-old cave painting of a pig may be the oldest known work of art
45,500 years is a long, long time. It is nearly 23 times as long as the distance between the point at which you are reading this article and the birth of Jesus Christ. It is roughly 9 times as long as the distance between the present day and the rise of ancient Egyptian civilization. And, according to a recent archaeological paper, that is how long ago artists on an island in modern-day Indonesia were in a cave, painting an adorable rendering of a pig.
If their estimations are correct, that pig portrait could be the oldest known example of a figurative drawing, meaning a form of art that attempts to depict the real world rather than designs or patterns…
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