Élisabeth Daynès (born in

Béziers Béziers (; ) is a city in southern France. It is a Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Hérault Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region. Every August Béziers ho ...

in 1960) is a French sculptor notable for her anthropological work relating to early humans. By 1981, she was working with the Théâtre de la Salamandre in

Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...

, creating masks for the theatre. In 1984, she founded her own studio, Atelier Daynès, in Paris. Some years later, the museum at Le Parc du Thot, close to the Lascaux caves, asked her to sculpt a life-sized

woolly mammoth The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived from the Middle Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African ...

with a group of humans from the

Magdalenian Magdalenian cultures (also Madelenian; ) are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years before present. It is named after the type site of Abri de la Madeleine, a ro ...

epoch. She has since specialized in reconstructing

hominid The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); '' Gorilla'' (the ...

s from remaining bones. Her work is present in museums all over the world, including the

Musée des Merveilles Musée des Merveilles in Tende, France is a museum that documents stone age and other historic artefacts from the Mercantour National Park. It opened in 1996. There is notably a large collection of real and reproduced petroglyphs from the surroundin ...

Tende Tende (; Italian language, Italian, Occitan language, Occitan and Royasc: ''Tenda'') is a Communes of France, commune in the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department in southeastern France. Geography Tende is located within Mercanto ...

Field Museum of Natural History The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educationa ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Transvaal Museum The Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, formerly the Transvaal Museum, is a natural history museum situated in Pretoria, South Africa. It is located on Paul Kruger Street, between Visagie and Minnaar Streets, opposite the Pretoria City ...

Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...

Sangiran Sangiran is an archaeological excavation site in Java in Indonesia. According to a UNESCO report (1995) "Sangiran is recognized by scientists to be one of the most important sites in the world for studying fossil man, ranking alongside Zhoukou ...

Museum in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

, Naturhistoriska riksmuseet in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

, and

Museum of Human Evolution The Museum of Human Evolution (Spanish: ''Museo de la Evolución Humana - MEH'') is situated on the south bank of the river Arlanzón, in the Spanish city of Burgos. It is located roughly 16 kilometers west of the Sierra de Atapuerca, the loca ...

Burgos Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populous municipality of the province of Burgos. Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of th ...

(Spain). One Daynès sculpture at the Field Museum depicts

Homo ergaster ''Homo ergaster'' is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Africa in the Early Pleistocene. Whether ''H. ergaster'' constitutes a species of its own or should be subsumed into '' H. erectus'' is an ongoing and unresol ...

, a pre-Neanderthal hominid that lived about 1.6 million years ago. One of her most notable sculptures is at the Krapina Neanderthal Museum in northern Croatia, where she made a reconstruction of an entire seventeen-member

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

family. In 2005, she created a lifelike model of Pharaoh

Tutankhamun Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen, (; ), was an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Born Tutankhaten, he instituted the restoration of the traditional polytheistic form of an ...

in a project with

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

. A close resemblance to the Pharaoh is likely, even though physical features like ears, nose tip, and colors of skin and eyes cannot be reliably reconstructed.The Fresh Face of King Tut
Science Daily

Award

In 2010 Daynès won the John J. Lazendorf Paleoart prize, widely regarded as the most prestigious award given to artists in science art related to paleontology, in the category of Three-Dimensional Art.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daynes, Elisabeth Living people 1960 births 20th-century French sculptors 21st-century French sculptors People from Béziers 20th-century French women artists 21st-century French women artists