The Ceramic Venus of Dolni Vestonice
According to the Venus of Dolní Věstonice article in Wikipedia, "Once on display at the Moravian Museum in Brno, it is now protected and only rarely accessible to the public. Last time it was exhibited in the National Museum in Prague from 11 October, 2006 till 2 September, 2007 as a part of the exhibition Lovci mamutů (The Mammoth Hunters)."
When I took these photos at the Vienna Natural History Museum, I felt that it was the original. At the time I was there I saw many facsimiles of important venus figurines, and they were usually immediately identifiable as copies, although modern museum quality facsimiles are staggeringly good. In particular the casts are hand coloured to exactly match the original, and the casting itself is absolutely superb. I would love to have those skills. The only thing that gives them away is the fairly uniform surface texture and patina, and the way they reflect light, as well as the lack of extremely fine detail such as hair line fractures and similar "flaws" inherent in an object tens of thousands of years old.
I found out when I looked at my photos months later and translated the text in a photo of the German language identification card with it that it was the original, on loan from the Anthroposmuseum in Brno, as part of the fantastic exhibition of venuses which providentially was on exhibition at the Vienna NHM while I was there in summer 2008 as part of the celebration of the Venus of Willendorf.
Broken in two when found, the nylon monofilament used to hold the figurine together may be seen in these photos.
Venus von Dolní Věstonice
Mähren Tschechien
gebrannter Ton
27 000 Jahre
Leihgabe: Anthroposmuseum in Brünn
Venus of Dolní Věstonice
Moravia Czech Republic
baked clay
27 000 years
Loan: Anthroposmuseum in Brno
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Original artefact, on display at Vienna Natural History Museum
According to the Venus of Dolni Vestonice article in Wikipedia,
This figurine, together with a few others from nearby locations, is the oldest known ceramic in the world, predating the use of fired clay to make pottery. It has a height of 111 millimeters (4.4 inches), and a width of 43 millimeters (1.7 inches) at its widest point and is made of a clay body fired at a relatively low temperature.
The palaeolithic settlement of Dolní Věstonice in Moravia, then Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic has been under systematic archaeological research since 1924, initiated by Karel Absolon. In addition to the Venus figurine, figures of animals - bear, lion, mammoth, horse, fox, rhino and owl - and more than 2 000 balls of burnt clay have been found at Dolní Věstonice.
The figurine was discovered on July 13, 1925 in a layer of ash, broken into two pieces. Once on display at the Moravian Museum in Brno, it is now protected and only rarely accessible to the public. Last time it was exhibited in the National Museum in Prague from 11 October, 2006 till 2 September, 2007 as a part of the exhibition Lovci mamutů (The Mammoth Hunters). Scientists periodically examine the statuette. A tomograph scan in 2004 found a fingerprint of a child estimated at between 7 and 15 years of age, fired into the surface; the child who handled the figurine before it was fired is considered by Králík, Novotný and Oliva (2002) to be an unlikely candidate for its maker.
Click on each of the photos above to see a more detailed version.
Photos: J Jelinek, 'The Evolution of Man'
Click on each of the photos above to see a more detailed version.
Photos: J Jelinek, 'The Evolution of Man'
The Mammoth Ivory Female head from Dolni Vestonice
S'Armuna.
Head carved from mammoth ivory showing a person with an asymmetrical face. Dolni Vestonice
Photo: T. Powell 'Prehistoric Art' (left hand photo), J Jelinek, 'The Evolution of Man' (next two photos), http://www.stormshock.com/history/ (lower colour photo)
The Mammoth Ivory Male statuette from Brno
The head, torso and left arm are all that survives of this male ivory statuette found in an upper Palaeolithic (Pavlovian) burial at Brno near Dolni Vestonice. There is a correctly proportioned stump of a penis at the base of the torso. Around 26 000 years BP.
Photo: http://cmsu2.cmsu.edu/~ldm4683/5.htm
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Click on the photo to see a larger version of this view of the Brno Male.
This is another photo of the statuette above. Carved from mammoth ivory, and touched with red ochre, the statuette is in the form of a puppet or doll. (20 cm)
Photo: photographed at the Anthropos Institute, Moravian Museum, Brno, Czechoslavakia, by Ira Block. In National Geographic, Vol 174, No 4, October 1988.
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A reconstruction of the Brno marionette.
This marionette was found in the grave of what has been interpreted as a shaman. 28 000 years ago (23 500 RCYBP) a 10-year-old boy began to suffer from an excruciating, even unbearable pain in his hands and legs. He suffered from periostitis, an inflammation of the periosteum, a dense membrane composed of fibrous connective tissue that closely wraps all bone, except the bone of articulating surfaces in joints which are covered by synovial membranes. So periostitis literally is inflammation around the bone.
Artist: Illustration © Libor Balák
Photo and text adapted from: http://www.iabrno.cz/agalerie/pavlova.htm
He learned how to defeat his pain, grew up into a strong man and become a shaman because of his abilities and qualities. He possessed a fascinating cap sewn with some 600 shells (of the Dentalium badense), a marionette, many discs made of various materials and several animal skulls. When he died, the survivors broke his drumstick, and one of its parts was placed in his grave together with the other things that he was using. It is possible that they placed the other part on the top of the grave together with the drum. This custom still exists in some Arctic communities.
Artist: Illustration © Libor Balák
Photo and text adapted from: http://www.iabrno.cz/agalerie/pavlova.htm
Dentalium badense fossil shells, one of the ammonites, but not coiled as most classical ammonites are.
Image: http://www.geocities.com/fossil_sharks_from_transylvania/Other_fossils_html/Dentalium_badense.htm
The following has been adapted from a book review by Stephen Aldhouse-Green from the resource:
http://www.waspress.co.uk/journals/beforefarming/journal_20021/abstracts/papers/20021_05.pdf
Hunters of the Golden Age: the Mid Upper Palaeolithic of Eurasia 30 000 - 20 000 BP
Editors: W Roebroeks, M Mussi, J Svoboda and K Fennema
ISBN 9073368154
University of Leiden. July 2000
Golden Age or gilded age?
Life and belief on the mammoth steppe
Burial and Brno
As Mussi et al express it, 'the very fact of
burying a dead person, sometimes with a rich
assemblage of goods, is innovative enough not to
occur by chance in otherwise chronologically,
geographically and sometimes culturally related
areas'.
Gravettian ceremonial burial - like art - is
pan-European in its scale and practice. Of
particular relevance here is the paper by Oliva (The Brno II Upper Palaeolithic burial)
which deals with the Brno II burial in the Czech
Republic.
This was salvaged in 1891, at the same
time as excavations of the Balzi Rossi caves were
taking place. The grave was an isolated find which
has the merit of reducing uncertainty about the
integrity of the association. The skeleton has now
been directly dated to 23 680 ± 200 BP (OxA-
8283).
The range of grave goods is highly unusual
and includes the only figurine ever to have been
found in a sepulchral context. Finds include the
ochre-strewn burial of an adult male suffering from
periostitis; a mammoth scapula (covering the
burial) and other megaherbivore remains of
mammoth and woolly rhinoceros; a composite
male figurine of ivory (the so-called 'marionette'); decorative items including 600 fossil shells
interpreted as a ornaments for a head-covering, 2
large slate disks, and 14 roundels variously made
of haematite, soft stone, bone, mammoth molar
and ivory; finally, a reindeer antler with polished
end interpreted as a drumstick.
Oliva sees three features as being of special
significance. First, the periostitic condition of the
burial would have resulted in chronic pain and
possibly psychological trauma. Second, the
situation of the burial away from any settlement.
Third, the nature of the grave goods, including the
large herbivore bones.
A shamanic interpretation
is founded on these data: the deceased's state of
health might have given him social recognition as
a shaman; the nature and placement of the grave
goods denotes specialness - among these, the
figurine is remarkable - and the drumstick, if
correctly identified, has an obvious significance as
an instrument associated with the inducing of
altered states of consciousness.
Looking beyond Brno, the burials can be seen
to reflect differential and, probably in some cases,
inherited status.
This varying treatment is seen also in sites like
the Grotta Paglicci or Dolní Vestonice where some
bodies were represented by no more than scatters
of human bone.
Oliva's argument that
the state of health of the Brno burial may indicate
a special status in life as a shaman may be
extended. Thus, in later prehistoric Europe, people
whose position was in some way liminal - and
health is but one possibility - were often treated
differentially in death or, even, were singled out for
death. In a Gravettian
context the Dolní Vestonice XIV burial, of uncertain
gender and suffering both from curvature of the spine
and a diseased femur, is striking in this regard.
The complex symbolism of the Gravettian burials
will ensure that they remain a key area for continuing
study and analysis.
The Ostrava Venus
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The Ostrava Venus
This miniature female torso, only 5 cm in height, carved in haematite, comes from the Gravettian camp site of Ostrava-Petrkovice in in Moravia, the Czech Republic. Age 27 000 years BP. It seems incredibly modern, almost cubic in style, and the pubic triangle looks like the bottom half of a modern bikini. I think of it as the South Bondi venus.
Photo: T. Powell 'Prehistoric Art'
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The Mammoth Ivory Male head from Dolni Vestonice
Click on each of the images to see a larger version
Brugar
This may be a portrait of the person with a protruding brow whose skull was found in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1891. Since these photographs were published in the National Geographic in October 1988, and Plains of Passage was published in 1990, Jean Auel could well have used it as the model for Brugar, the person of mixed spirits described in Plains of Passage as having lived at Dolni Vestonice.
Eight centimetre high male head carved of mammoth ivory dated at 26 000 years BP.
Note that the figure has very heavy brow ridges. The figure has been stated to have a beard, but this feature is not obvious from the photographs.
Note also that Paul Bahn writing in 'Journey through the Ice Age', says that the head may be a fake. His main argument seems to be lack of provenance (meaning that it was not found by a recognised and trusted archeologist, or with reliable witnesses to the discovery) and that the style is too modern. He also says that the Lady of Brassempouy (the ivory carving of Ayla) may be a fake.
The following text is from The National Geographic October 1988, and is written by Alexander Marshack.
Alexander Marshack is a professor of Paleolithic Archaeology at Harvard University's Peabody Museum. He is amongst many other things a fine photographer and science writer
The head was an extraordinarily powerful male head with staring eyes, pinpoint holes in the irises, heavy brows, a strong upturned nose and long deeply incised hair. The smaller piece was a lock of longer hair. This lock of hair appeared to have been carved to curve around a staff.
A Czech family living in Australia, who prefer anonymity, had brought the carving to New York for Alexander Marshack to study.
This bust was discovered in the 1890s in a field near Dolni Vestonice, a village in which archaeologists, beginning in the 1920s, had found Ice Age works of art. Excavation continues there today, directed by Dr. Bohuslav Klima
Dr Klima is a distinguished researcher in prehistory, and is at present an associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Brno. He is a specialist in the Upper Palaeolithic in Central Europe, and is also the Director of the Archaeological Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Brno.
Dr Bohuslav Klima standing, left, conferring with Alexander Marshack, seated, right, in Dolni Vestonice.
The only other human head from the Ice Age that had eye sockets, eyeballs, and lids was the realistically carved female with a bun excavated in a 26 000 year level at Dolni Vestonice. Pieces of the ivory lamellae, like layers of an onion, had flaked off, leaving an uneven surface and an unfinished look. Later when Alexander Marshack reexamined this head in Czechoslovakia, and cleaned it he found incised nostrils, a detail not noted before, that resembled the style of the male head. Were these accidental similarities or aspects of a regional Ice Age style?
His initial microscopic analysis indicated that the male head had been broken in several places, glued together, and covered with a protective coating. He was told by the owners that the piece had been dipped in horse glue, once a common method of preserving bone. The ivory had apparently been shaped with flint tools. Many grooves were striated and changed configuration as the line curved. A steel blade would not make these patterns. Some strokes were overlaid with encrustations of sand and minerals that had apparently accumulated over time. Natural cracks, also filled with minerals, crossed the engraved lines, suggesting that weathering had occurred after the piece was carved.
The bottom had been sawed horizontally at about the shoulder line. Marshack had seen fine-toothed blades from the Dolni Vestonice collection that might, when hafted, have been used to saw ivory in this way. The nostrils and eyes presented a special problem. They appeared to have been cleaned, and even recarved, and then covered with paraffin.
The protruding brow is similar to that on a skull found in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1891.
X-ray diffraction at the Peabody Museum revealed the presence of iron oxides, which give the artifact its reddish brown coloration, and fluorapatite, the result of an exchange between the ivory and minerals in the soil. Both suggest long burial in the ground.
The British Museum had seen the piece once before. In the late 1940s the museum had been asked to authenticate the piece but had to return it when the owners moved to Australia; the museum may have put the paraffin in the eyes as a preservative. Museum experts now told Marshack it would be difficult, if not impossible, to fake the complex changes that had occurred in the ivory.
Clearly the ivory needed to be dated, and, more important, the carving itself. Accelerator carbon-14 dating was not feasible because it would consume a portion of the statuette. Marshack contacted Dr. Edward Zeller, director of the Radiation Physics Lab at the University of Kansas Space Technology Center, who became intrigued with the problem. He suggested alpha-particle spectral analysis to locate radioactive elements useful in estimating age. Working with fragments at first, Ed found uranium in surprising quantities. Uranium would enter the tusk only after its burial in sediment or sand where groundwater containing traces of uranium was seeping. More startling were the high counts of radium and other radioactive products of uranium decay.
While Ed was testing, Marshack detoured to Czechoslovakia on his way to a conference in Italy. He wanted to learn about soil conditions in the area of Dolni Vestonice and confer with Dr. Klima. He learned that uranium, a valued resource after World War II, had been located in the highlands northwest of Brno. Rainwater draining these heights may have reached the lowlands where the head was reportedly found. Klima said, 'We have so many unique things from Dolni Vestonice and Brno -the 'marionette', the oldest fired clay figures, the 26 000 year old female head - it would not surprise me to find here the oldest male image.'
Back in Kansas, Ed Zeller and his associate Dr. Wakefield Dort, Jr., a Pleistocene geologist now had the carved hair piece to test. They placed it in the counting chamber of the alpha particle spectrometer for 72 hours. The final ratios of uranium to decay products suggested that the carved surface of the ivory may be about 26 000 years old.
The scientists envision this Ice Age scenario: Sometime after a mammoth died, someone carved a piece of its tusk. The carving became buried in sediment or sand, where it absorbed uranium, iron oxide, and fluoride from the groundwater. The calcium phosphate of the ivory absorbed the minerals, especially the uranium. At the same time, radioactive decay set in, leaving its by-products at levels that require thousands of years to build up to the present reading. If the head had been carved anytime in the past few centuries, the decay products on the surface would have been cut away. 'Even Madam Curie couldn't fake that effect.' Ed said. He and Dort have no doubt that the carving is ancient, but the precise age has yet to be confirmed.
Photo and text: National Geographic October 1988, photo by Alexander Marshack
In July 2008 I received this very interesting communication from Danylo Derkacz (a pseudonym):
I am a retired neuropathologist and part time forensic pathologist who has dissected and examined microscopically about 1 200 human heads and brains.
1) the ivory head is carved by someone with training and talent.
2) the head makes no sense physiologically, genetically, medically or culturally.
a) medically it represents the head of a microcephalic individual who even with today's medical and social care would not survive puberty.
b) the supraorbital ridges are those of a Neandertal but the head lacks the prognathia and recessed mentum (chin) of a Neandertal and has it protruding like that of H. sapiens sapiens.
c) the upturned nose is typical of a modern Slovyan (Slav) who at the time of discovery were considered as stupid peasants.
3) neither today nor then would any artist produce a labor intensive sculpture of a village idiot with microcephaly.
4) the nose of the ivory figure is so exaggerated that is better interpreted as that of a tertiary syphilitic which was then common in the pre-penicillin era and pre sulfonamides era.
In summary:
I think it is a first half of the 20th century fake and caricature of the fashionable (at that time) concept of Neandertals admixed with westerners as an expression of disrespect for Slavs.
This page last modified Tuesday 05 May 2009
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Venus von Dolní Věstonice 
