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The Nebra Venus - Die Venus von Nebra

A hunter camp of the Stone Age

The Ore Mountains, Erzgebirge, from Altenberg.

Photo: Siegismund

Source: Panoramio, Google Earth

Translated from http://nebra-06642.de/de/venus.htm:

Altenberg is a city in Thuringia in eastern Germany, about 25 miles south of Dresden near the Czech border. The site of Altenburg in the Stone Age was a particularly favorable place to settle. Excavations have uncovered a settlement of the Magdalenian hunters (about 17 000 BP). The tent-like dwelling was visited repeatedly over a number of summers. Floor plans and post holes of residential buildings have been identified.

The most well known is the "Venus of Nebra", a sculpture in ivory approximately 7 cm high. Bones of wild horses, reindeer, hare, grouse, flint artefacts, burins and knives have been discovered. This field settlement has been known since 1940 and was systematically excavated in 1962 and 1969. Overall, the digs provided about 2250 tools and 10 000 flint waste fragments .

The Nebra Venus - Die Venus von Nebra

The card on the display read:

Venus von Nebra
Sachsen-Anhalt, Deutschland
15.000 Jahre (Magdalénien)
Knochen
Original
Leihgabe: Landesmuseum.

Which translates as Venus from Nebra, 15 000 years old, bone, original, on loan from the Landesmuseum.

Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008

Source: Original in the Vienna Natural History Museum

There are a total of three very similar venuses from Nebra.

Photo: http://nebra-06642.de/de/venus.htm

These venus sculptures are from Nebra, though misidentified by the source as being from Gönnersdorf.

They are the venuses on the extreme left and right of the photo above.

Photo: http://www.landschaftsmuseum.de/Seiten/Lexikon/Kunst-Goenn.htm

Another version of the original Venus of Nebra.

Photo: http://www.myheimat.de/sachsen-anhalt/nebra-unstrut/bildergalerie/altenburg-m1488243.html#image

Sign leading to the site of the Nebra Venus.

Photo: http://www.myheimat.de/sachsen-anhalt/nebra-unstrut/bildergalerie/altenburg-m1488237.html