Ancient Sculpture Found in Germany
Friday May 15, 2009
A small sculpture found in a German cave could be the world's oldest, but comments from some researchers seem to lean towards the non-academic. The female figure, which is estimated to be about 35,000 years old, is of an amply-breasted woman with wide hips and a swollen belly. Here's what makes me ponder, though - University of Tuebingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard says of the statue, "It's very sexually charged."
Conard's team found the statue in a cave in the Hohle Fels region. It is similar in appearance to the "Willendorf Venus" figurines which were unearthed in the Pyrenees mountains and southern Russia. Admittedly, Conard is the expert here, and not me, but it seems strange to automatically attach a sexual connotion to the statue. One of his compatriots, Paul Mellars, of the University of Cambridge, goes as far as saying that the society which carved it "were obsessed with sex."
This, of course, is making the assumption that (a) ancient people had the same standards of "sexy" as we do today and (b) that it's not a fertility representation at all, but really just Neandertal porn. Jill Cook, from the British Museum, suggests that the statue may actually be of a woman about to give birth. Regardless, it's a lovely find, and I'm wondering if replicas will soon find their way onto Pagan home altars around the world.
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Conard's team found the statue in a cave in the Hohle Fels region. It is similar in appearance to the "Willendorf Venus" figurines which were unearthed in the Pyrenees mountains and southern Russia. Admittedly, Conard is the expert here, and not me, but it seems strange to automatically attach a sexual connotion to the statue. One of his compatriots, Paul Mellars, of the University of Cambridge, goes as far as saying that the society which carved it "were obsessed with sex."
This, of course, is making the assumption that (a) ancient people had the same standards of "sexy" as we do today and (b) that it's not a fertility representation at all, but really just Neandertal porn. Jill Cook, from the British Museum, suggests that the statue may actually be of a woman about to give birth. Regardless, it's a lovely find, and I'm wondering if replicas will soon find their way onto Pagan home altars around the world.
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Comments
I believe that guy is sexually obsessed.
It’s most likely a charm to aid in childbirth or fertility.
I’d like to see the image better. The ones they showed weren’t clear enough.
I agree that that guy is the sex-obsessed one. And I certainly hope that I can get a gopy of this beauty for my altar. But do you ever wonder if these scientists aren’t barking up the wrong tree entirely? Maybe it’s a goddess. Maybe it’s “caveman” porn. Maybe it’s some hunter’s portable likeness of his/her wife or mother? Maybe it’s not so much “goddess” as it is “woman?” Not so much fertility or childbirth, but nurturing and home? Dunno. But I do suspect there is a good deal more to these ladies than meets the partriarchal scientific gaze.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time scientists allowed their own cultural views to effect their scientific work. We’ve often seen cases where skeletons were assumed to be male because they were buried with implements to suggest they were warriors, but new diagnostic tools have since shown the skeletons to be female. I think we have to question many of the understood anthropological precepts. It’s just too easy to view everything from our own cultural perspective, and of course, almost impossible to view them otherwise.
Well, he’s right and he’s wrong, lol. It was most likely a statue of a fertility and fecundity Goddess, so yes, it does deal with sex — although maybe not in the porn-state-of-mind that he may have been trying to portray. They probably didn’t ogle over the statutes like some of today’s humankind would ogle over a Penthouse mag.
…um…”statuettes”, not “statutes”…
plus, nudity does not necessarily mean sex!
Next thing you know, they’ll name her “Eve”! Sorry guys, at least she wanted knowledge!!