Venus of Brassempouy
Venus de Brassempouy | |
---|---|
Type | Figurine |
Material | Ivory |
Created | ~25,000 years ago |
Discovered | 1894, Brassempouy, France |
The Venus of Brassempouy (French: la Dame de Brassempouy,
Discovery
P. E. Dubalen first explored the Grotte du Pape during 1881, followed by J. de Laporterie and Édouard Piette (1827–1906) from 1894 onwards. Since archaeological
In 1894, one of those strata, recognized now as Gravettian, yielded several fragments of statuettes, including the "Lady with the Hood". Piette considered the figures as closely related to the representations of animals of the Magdalenian period. He developed a hypothetical chronology that was later refuted by Henri Breuil.
Description
The Venus of Brassempouy was carved from
Randall White observed in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory (December 2006), "The figurines emerged from the ground into a colonial intellectual and socio-political context nearly obsessed with matters of race."[7] Although the style of representation is essentially realistic, the proportions of the head do not correspond exactly to any known human population of the present or past. White has claimed that, since the mid-twentieth century, concerns of interpretative questions have changed from race to womanhood and fertility.[7]
Date
Although the head was discovered so early that its context could not be studied thoroughly, scholars agree that the Venus of Brassempouy belonged to an Upper Palaeolithic
, etc. Nonetheless, it is distinguished among the group by the realistic character of the representation.Other broadly contemporary representations of female faces include
Display
The Venus of Brassempouy is preserved in the
At Brassempouy, a variety of objects excavated in the Grotte du Pape are on display at the Maison de la Dame. This exhibition space, devoted primarily to regional archaeology, also displays a fine set of casts of palaeolithic sculptures. These include the nine existing specimens from Brassempouy, but also casts of the well-known figures from Lespugue, Willendorf and Dolní Věstonice, as well as the
Stamp
In 1976, the Venus of Brassempouy was depicted on a 2 franc stamp. It has also been the motif of a 15 franc (CFA) stamp of the Republic of Mali.
See also
- Art of the Upper Paleolithic
- List of Stone Age art
- Venus figurines
Notes
- S2CID 161276973.
- Venus figurines.
- S2CID 161276973..
- ISBN 978-0520213067.
- ISBN 978-0-19-969822-6.
- ^ "Echoes of the Past: Prehistoric Wonders in Southern France". France Today. 2021-09-30. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
- ^ S2CID 161276973..
- S2CID 161276973., p. 264.
- ^ Piette, E., Laporterie J., 1894: Les fouilles de Brassempouy en 1894, Bulletins de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris, IV° Série, tome 5, 1894. pp. 633-648.
- ^ Inventory number 47 019.
Bibliography
- H. Delporte, Brassempouy – la grotte du Pape, station préhistorique, Association culturelle de Contis, 1980
- H. Delporte, L'image de la femme dans l'art préhistorique, éd. Picard, 1993 (ISBN 2-7084-0440-7)
- C. Cohen, La femme des origines - images de la femme dans la préhistoire occidentale, Belin - Herscher, 2003 (ISBN 2-7335-0336-7)
- P. Perrève, La dame à la capuche - roman historique - Ed. Olivier Orban, 1984, (ISBN 2-85565-244-8)
External links
- Don Hitchcock: History and images of artefacts from the Grottes du Pape
- Randall White (December 2006). "The Women of Brassempouy: A Century of Research and Interpretation" (PDF). Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. 13 (4): 251–304. S2CID 161276973..
- Brassempouy Museum (French)
- Image of the stamp