It is here, between 1894 and 1897 that the archeologist Edouard Piette discovered many statuettes, one of which is the most famous of all prehistoric art: ‘The Lady of Brassempouy’ (‘La Dame de Brassempouy’) also known as ‘The Lady in the Hood’ (‘La Dame à la Capuche’).
This astonishing face of a woman, which is only 3.4 cm high and is 23,000 years old, is sculpted in ivory from a mammoth tusk. It is all the more remarkable for the fact that human representations are very rare throughout the Upper Paleolithic period.
The different vestiges found at Brassempouy, dating from between 35,000 and 10,000 years ago, show the presence here of Mousterian culture as well as Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrian and Magdalenian cultures.
Today ‘La Dame de Brassempouy’ is kept in the ‘Musée des Antiquités Nationales at Saint-Germain-en-Laye’, near Paris.
