| Venus of Willendorf | |
|---|---|
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| Material | Oolitic limestone |
| Created | c. 25,000 BP |
| Discovered | August 7, 1908, near Willendorf, by Josef Szombathy |
| Present location | Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria |
The Venus of Willendorf is an 11.1-centimetre-tall (4.4 in) Venus figurine estimated to have been made around 29,500 years ago.[1][2] [3] It was recovered on August 7, 1908 from an archaeological dig conducted by Josef Szombathy, Hugo Obermaier, and Josef Bayer at a Paleolithic site near Willendorf, a village in Lower Austria.[4][5] The figurine was found by a workman named either Johann Veran[6] or Josef Veram[7] and is carved from an oolitic limestone that is not local to the area, and tinted with red ochre. It is in the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria as of 2003[update].[8]
YouTube Encyclopedic
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Nude woman (Venus of Willendorf)
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Venus of Willendorf
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What are the Venus Figurines?
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Case Study 1.2: Willendorf
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Venus Figurines: What do they mean? feat. The Dirt
Transcription
[MUSIC PLAYING] DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: People love definitive answers. We really want to have a clear understanding of everything we see, art historians especially so. But people also love to make things. We love to make art. And one of the oldest works of art in the world yet found, is a small female figurine that's sometimes simply called Female Nude, but is still universally known as the Venus of Willendorf, a name that makes no sense whatsoever, but really speaks to the lens that our culture looks through. DR. BETH HARRIS: She acquired the name Venus when she was found in 1908, in a village in Austria, called Willendorf. She's only about 11 centimeters high, and she dates from about 25,000 years ago. So she's really old. And, in the museum in Vienna where we we're looking at her, in the Natural History Museum, they've shrouded her in darkness, in a glass case, illuminated from above. The outside looks like a great temple, and on it, it says "Venus of Willendorf." DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And in fact, in the temple, there's a little button because, remember, this is a science museum. Lots of kids, and kids love to push buttons, and when they do, the white light on the figurine turns red, and a little flute music starts. Now of course we have no idea if these people listened to music, what that music would've been. It's really an attempt to fill in all the gaps. We know almost nothing about her. We don't know why she was made, who made her. What we have is the figure, and virtually no context. It is in some ways an anthropological object, rather than an art object. DR. BETH HARRIS: By giving her the name of an ancient Greek goddess, the goddess of love Venus, we were assigning meaning to her. A meaning of her being a goddess figure, and somehow associated with fertility. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Now, we have no reason to believe any of that is true. I suppose we do have a little bit more context, and that is, this is only one of quite a number of female figures that have been found from this era. This is during the last ice age, and it's some of the first figural sculpture that we've seen. What's interesting is that almost all the sculptures that have been found have been female figures. DR. BETH HARRIS: We should say all the figures that have been found so far are female figures, and they're nude. But they're of different shapes. Some exaggerate the breasts and buttocks. But others are thin. But maybe in 10 years, or 100 years, art historians and archaeologists will find male figures. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: So, all of this is guesswork. All we've got to look at is the figure itself. Let's take a close look. DR. BETH HARRIS: She has no feet, and very thin arms, which she rests high up on her breasts. And she has no facial features. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: That's consistent with almost all the figures from this period that have been found. There is a careful rendering of the hair, or perhaps a woven hat that's on her head. Some archaeologists have suggested that this might be a reed hat that she wears. DR. BETH HARRIS: Oh. There's the music and the red light. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: That's right, a small girl has just pushed the button. The hands are articulated ever so slightly, defining the fingers. And archaeologists who have looked at this carefully have suggested that perhaps the exaggeration of the stomach, and of the breasts, and of the head-- those are bulbous shapes throughout-- are partially a result of natural shape of the stone. This is a limestone object. She's symmetrical, and it's clearly not something that was meant to stand up. As you mentioned, there were no feet. But this is a figure that would easily fill a hand, and you have the sense that this is something that was meant to be held. DR. BETH HARRIS: Carried in a pocket, perhaps. Something like that. She does fit comfortably in a hand. We know that she was originally painted with ochre paint, a kind of red paint. Beyond that, it's really hard to say much more. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: So, we'll continue to be fascinated by it. Art historians will continue to try to find answers. And in some ways, I'm sure we'll always fall into the trap of reflecting our own interests, and our own needs, as we try to understand this object. I'm not sure that we'll ever fully understand it or be able to retrieve its original meanings. DR. BETH HARRIS: Nope. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Dating
The figure is associated with the Upper Paleolithic Gravettian industry, which dates to between 33,000 and 20,000 years ago. The figure itself is estimated to have been left in the ground around 25,000 years ago, based on radiocarbon dates from the layers surrounding it.[1]
Interpretation and purpose
Similar sculptures, first discovered in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, are traditionally referred to in archaeology as "Venus figurines", due to the widely held belief that depictions of nude women with exaggerated sexual features represented an early fertility deity, perhaps a mother goddess. The reference to Venus is metaphorical, since the figurines predate the mythological figure of Venus by many thousands of years. Some scholars reject this terminology, instead referring to the statuette as the "Woman of" or "Woman from Willendorf".[9]
Very little is known about the Venus' origin, method of creation, or cultural significance; however, it is one of numerous "Venus figurines" surviving from Paleolithic Europe.[10] The purpose of the carving is the subject of much speculation. Like other similar sculptures, it probably never had feet, and would not have stood on its own, although it might have been pegged into soft ground. Parts of the body associated with fertility and childbearing have been emphasized, leading some researchers to believe that the Venus of Willendorf and similar figurines may have been used as fertility goddesses.[10] The figure has no visible face, her head being covered with circular horizontal bands of what might be rows of plaited hair, or perhaps a type of headdress.[11]
Catherine McCoid and LeRoy McDermott hypothesize that the figurines may have been created as self-portraits by women.[12] This theory stems from the correlation of the proportions of the statues to how the proportions of women's bodies would seem if they were looking down at themselves, which would have been the only way to view their bodies during this period. They speculate that the complete lack of facial features could be accounted for by the fact that sculptors did not own mirrors. This reasoning has been criticized by University of California anthropologist Michael S. Bisson, who notes that water pools and puddles would have been readily available natural mirrors for Paleolithic humans.[attribution needed]
Stone's source
Research published in 2022 indicates that the closest and most likely source of the oolite used is on the other side of the Alps in northern Italy, near Lake Garda. A lesser possibility is that it came from a site in eastern Ukraine some 1,600 km (1,000 mi) away.[2]
While the former has the highest statistical probability, the latter is closer to sites in southern Russia where similarly styled figurines have been found. In either case, this raises questions regarding the mobility of ancient populations.[2]
See also
References
- ^ a b Antl-Weiser, Walpurga (2009). "The time of the Willendorf figurines and new results of palaeolithic research in Lower Austria". Anthropologie. 47 (1–2). Brno: 131–141. Archived from the original on 2021-03-22. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
- ^ a b c Weber, G.W.; Lukeneder, A.; Harzhauser, M. (February 28, 2022). "The microstructure and origin of the Venus of Willendorf". Scientific Reports. 12 (2926). Nature: 2926. doi:10.1038/s41598-022-06799-z. PMC 8885675. PMID 35228605.
- ^ Philip R. Nigst, Paul Haesaerts, Freddy Damblon, Christa Frank-Fellner, Carolina Mallol, Bence Viola, Michael Götzinger, Laura Niven, Gerhard Trnka, and Jean-Jacques Hublin: Early modern human settlement of Europe north of the Alps occurred 43,500 years ago in a cold steppe-type environment. PNAS October 7, 2014 111 (40) 14394-14399. doi:10.1073 /pnas.1412201111.
- ^ Venus of Willendorf Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, 2003.
- ^ John J Reich; Lawrence Cunningham (2013) Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities, 8th Ed., Andover, Belmont, CA ISBN 978-1-133-95122-3
- ^ Antl-Weiser, Walpurga. "The anthropomorphic figurines from Willendorf" (PDF). Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum. 19: 19–30. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2014-10-21. Retrieved 2012-12-24.
- ^ Bibby, Geoffrey (1956). The Testimony of the Spade. New York: Alfred A. Knoff. p. 139.
- ^ Witcombe, Christopher (2003) Venus of Willendorf Archived 2004-04-03 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 2008
- ^ Venus of Wllendorf Archived 2021-03-10 at the Wayback Machine, Encyclopædia Britannica; Dictionary of Women Artists Archived 2021-03-10 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ a b Lawrence Cunningham; John J Reich (2006). Culture and values : a survey of the humanities. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. ISBN 978-1-133-94533-8.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "Woman from Willendorf" Archived 2007-10-05 at the Wayback Machine. Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, 2003: "The rows are not one continuous spiral but are, in fact, composed in seven concentric horizontal bands that encircle the head and two more horizontal bands underneath the first seven on the back of the head."
- ^ McDermott, LeRoy (1996). "Self-Representation in Upper Paleolithic Female Figurines". Current Anthropology. 37 (2): 227–275. doi:10.1086/204491. JSTOR 2744349. S2CID 144914396.
External links
- Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, "Women in Prehistory:Venus of Willendorf".
- Don Hitchcock (Don's Maps): "Venus figures from the Stone Age - The Venus of Willendorf"
- The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory by J.M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer and Jake Page, ISBN 978-0-06-117091-1, gives a new 'view' of headdress as possible model for weaving a basket; Lauran Miller review at Salon.com: [1]
- 3D model of the Venus of Willendorf in the 3D museum of the Natural History Museum Vienna
48°19′N 15°23′E / 48.317°N 15.383°E
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This page was last edited on 2 April 2024, at 04:27