| | HUNTING AND GATHERING
Women as Fertility and Spiritual Symbols The discovery of the "Black Venus” figurine near the Czech village of Dolni Vestonice in 1924, offers a new perspective on the role of women in prehistoric times. This small, clay statue of a woman, which is about 26,000 years old, is the earliest known ceramic work of art. It is also believed to be one of the first physical representations of a religious or superstitious system and an early fertility totem. Since its discovery, dozens of other similar “Venus” figurines have been uncovered throughout France and Russia. A recently discovered “Venus Statue” found in southern Italy, was an unusual reptile-woman with horns, which has been named the “Beauty and the Beast.” According to Marherita Mussi, archeologist at the University of Rome-La Sapienza, this statue represents the spiritual power of women in the Ice Age. Perhaps women were shamans- medicinal healers or mediums for the spiritual world. This presents quite a different image of the “common” early woman!
 Black Venus of Dolni Vestonice c. 26,000 BCE Terra Cotta 11 cm. high
Brno Anthropology Museum, Czech Republic | | Venus of Willendorf c. 24,000-22,000 BCE Oolitic limestone 11.1 cm. high
Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna The most famous early image of a human, a woman, is the so-called "Venus" of Willendorf, found in 1908 by the archaeologist Josef Szombathy in an Aurignacian loess deposit in a terrace about 30 meters above the Danube river near the town of Willendorf in Austria. Interest in the Earth Mother and the Great Mother increased significantly in the 19th century. Besides the classical sources attesting to her worship, the 19th century became aware of the many contemporary tribal peoples who worshipped the Earth as a female deity. |
