Stunning. And great angle photos to reveal features.
I can agree with your interpretation of man wearing bear mask. The two
rounded ears are bear-like. I am looking at photo 6250027. It looks
maybe like the artist set out to make a bear head, fashioning the ears.
One on the right looks natural, one on the left has artifical cutmark
(or possibly natural), revealing excellent top of a bear's rounded ear.
Then the artist took out the flake for the mouth area. It might have
been bigger and more rectangular than intended. (It yielded a more
human like nose.) Then the artist saw that with that flat surface
he/she could with easy flaking-abrading produce human lips inside the
bear mouth. This resulted in depicting a mythic or ritual image, man
in a bear mask (or human devoured by a bear -- a common circumpolar myth
in more recent sapiens sapiens religious traditions.
Again, I must say this is one of the most remarkable sculptures I have
seen.
"James Harrod."
Bear - shaman - beegden
