Category: people

Moa hunters: The scene can be dated around 1300 AD. Moa-species depicted here are Emeus crassus on the left and Anomalopteryx didiformis on the right. There were 9 species of moa on New Zealand. Only 100 years after the arrival of the first humans, which happened at the end of the 13th century, no moas are found in the rubbish pits of their settlements anymore. One of many examples how fast populations of flightless birds endemic to islands collapse after the colonization by humans.

The traditional dog breed of the Maori called Kurī is also extinct, but other than moas they were still seen by the first european settlers in New Zealand. There are still museum specimens of them.

Acrylic and oil paint on panel, 2020

50 x 40 cm

Cyprus in the Mesolithic: A man hunts a Cyprus dwarf hippopotamus (Hippopotamus minor). This was a relative to the modern hippo (Hippopotamus amphibius) and characterized by a special foot-anatomy which made it walking on just two toes per foot and was an adaption to a more terresric way of life. This specialized hippo became extinct very fast after the arrival of humans on prehistoric Cyprus.

Acrylic paint on paper, 2019

50 x 40 cm

Medieval mine. In the foreground there is a pitman at the bobbin, on the right tools like shovel, bucket and hoe. Further backward a worker is transporting ore in a hutch. Above there is a pitman on a ladder and someone working with the “Gezähe” (hammer and chisel).

Oil paint on paper, 2018

32 x 24 cm

Client: Landesamt für Archäologie Sachsen (LfA)

Medieval mining settlement. In the foreground there is a mine shaft with bobbin. Workers stamping the ore aside. Farther behind there are a forge, an assay furnace, an ore roasting furnace, the dwellings of the miners, a charcoal pit and a Waldhufendorf. The merchants in the foreground show that these villages were provided with aliment from outside and that they had no own food production.

Oil paint on paper, 2018

32 x 24 cm

Client: Landesamt für Archäologie Sachsen (LfA)

Placer terrain in the Bronze Age. In late autumn tin panning is practiced with timber channels and wooden boxes. Below older mining waste tips are overgrown with vegetation. Left above there are primitive dwellings of the diggers.

Oil paint on paper, 2018

40 x 30 cm

Client: Landesamt für Archäologie Sachsen (LfA)

Published in: Johann Friedrich Tolksdorf: Mittelalterlicher Bergbau und Umwelt im Erzgebirge. Eine interdisziplinäre Untersuchung (Mit Beiträgen von Mathias Bertuch, Christoph Herbig, Heide Hönig, Knut Kaiser, Anja Kaltofen, Petr Kočar, Sonja Matson, Libor Petr, Tobias Scharnweber, Frank Schröder und Matthias Schubert). ArchaeoMontan (4) (Dresden 2018).

Ötzi

Oil paint on paper, 2018

32 x 24 cm

The picture originated during the symposium “Kunst am Berg”, Panoramarestaurant BergDiamant Fiss/Austria.

The picture shows a male aboriginal Tasmanian, member of an ethnic group which faced a cruel genozide by european settlers during the 19th century. The last of them with pure Tasmanian descent, Fanny Chochrane Smith, died in 1905. Nonetheless there are still people around with partly native Tasmanian ancestry.

The man has dressed his hair with red ochre, which was common at the east coast of the island. The necklace is made from sea snails of the species Phasianotrochus bellulus, which was evidentially used by Tasmanians. Furthermore the tasmanians had very scantily clothing, not exceeding kangaroo fur. They didn’t know the art of tatooing, but scarification was done on parts of the body, like on the chest or shoulders.

For research I used the following publication: Gisela Völger: Die Tasmanier: Versuch einer ethnographisch-historischen Rekonstruktion; Wiesbaden, Steiner,1972

Oil paint on cardboard, 2017

29,5 x 21 cm

Himba woman with child and gourd

Oil paint on cardboard, 2017

42 x 29,5 cm

Buddhistical monk

Acrylic paint on paper, 2017

48 x 36 cm

Encounter with Aepyornis maximus

A Madagasy man of the Bara type faces a bird which extinction is caused by his species: elephant birds, also known as vorompatras, belong to the biggest birds of Earth history and lived probably until the 17th century. Anyway this bird has an importance for the natives until today: the shells of the big eggs are collected and sold to tourists. The aborigine has a gusset hairstyle, which was still a distinctive feature between the different clans of Madagascar a hundred years ago. The hair gussets were often covered in a layer of wax.

Coloured pencil, 2016/17

59,5 x 42 cm

MoVo – Moderne Vogelbilder, 2017, Heineanum Halberstadt

Stone Age in Vietnam: Hoabinhian or Hòa Bình culture

Coloured pencil, 2016

42 x 29,5 cm

Published in: I. Kraft, J. F. Tolksdorf, Archäologie | Vietnams Altsteinzeit als Bambuszeit?, Spektrum der Wissenschaft, October 2017, 70-77.

Portrait of a young Frenchwoman

Coloured pencil, 2016

29,5 x 21 cm

Slavonian village in the Early Middle Ages

Coloured pencil, 2015

59,5 x 42 cm

Sachsens Geschichte unterm Acker – Landwirte schützen Denkmale, 2015, Sächsischer Landtag www.archaeologie.sachsen.de/5822.htm

Mesolithic shaman with antler frontlet, lynx fur and bodypainting. Headdress like this was found in many parts of Europe. If they were used for cultic functions or drafted for going deerstalking is vague. Certainly there were similar masks by shamans in Siberia till the recent past.

Coloured pencil, 2015

59,5 x 42 cm

Sachsens Geschichte unterm Acker – Landwirte schützen Denkmale, 2015, Sächsischer Landtag www.archaeologie.sachsen.de/5822.htm

Woman of Bronze age, according to a hoard of Kyhna in Saxony (2100 BC), Únětice culture

Coloured pencil, 2015

65 x 50 cm

Sachsens Geschichte unterm Acker – Landwirte schützen Denkmale, 2015, Sächsischer Landtag www.archaeologie.sachsen.de/5822.htm

Maya warrior

Pencil, 2012

59,5 x 42 cm

Papuan and offensive cassowary (Casuarius casuarius)

Ink, 2014

70 x 50 cm

MoVo – Moderne Vogelbilder, 2015, Heineanum Halberstadt