Engineers and architects would be lost without their drawings. All great inventors have thought, not in words, but in images. The manipulation of images so as to imagine and simulate new possibilities creates a constantly increasing pool of creation and innovation. The creation of visual imagery also has technological spin-offs that can have unforeseen implications. Rather, it was dedicated to the manufacture of animal and human figurines.
Images are powerful, but images in object form are doubly so.
Imagine the difference in your experience between seeing a projected slide of a 32,000 year old sculpture and holding the original object in your hand. They are often the embodiment of social authority and legitimacy. They are material metaphors. We take images for granted because they have been so much a part of our everyday existence since Upper Paleolithic times. Think for a moment, what it must have been like previously, to have lived without images.