I study Art History and scientists speculate that figurines such as these (such as the Venus of Willendorf) (http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/willendorfdiscovery.html), were carried as fecundity good luck charms. They emphasize the breasts and "fertile triangle" genital area of the woman for reproduction.

Stephen Colbert was joking on his show that this is from a cave man's porn stash, but really, back in that time human kind was worrying themselves with survival (which includes successful reproduction).

I, too, reacted in disbelief and mild amusement at our current's media take on the figurine. What a bunch of ignoramuses...

Sorry for the awkward sentences above; my mind is mush from final exams.

I couldn't help but think when I saw this figure that if she were a real human being she would probably be unable to walk due to her exaggerated proportions.

Hmmm...just like today's Barbie doll. Coincidence?

Venus may well have been the contemporary ideal for the day for the reasons that Jeannie cited, just as Barbie (supposedly) is today for myriad reasons. Fatness was revered in a society that hung on by it's proverbial fingernails. The reverence of thinness began sometime in the 20th century as, ironically enough, food has become more plentiful.

And don't get me started on the conflicting messages in the media. I might blow a gasket. Suffice it to say that I agree with the analysis above and am looking for articles on the Venus to be placed right next to ones on the obesity crisis, just for comic relief.

Great post. I've had the same thoughts as Lisa and Jeannie. All of the focus is on the erotic, as if this were somehow (or should be) separable from fertility. Similarly, the assumption is that the Venus i s for men's enjoyment, not - for example - a charm for women.

But could you explain "Granted, the figure may be somewhat disproportionate (and I emphasize may be)..."

For a pre-agricultural people, this body type had to have been extremely rare, if ever existent. I think it's safe to say that the Venus was not an attempt at a realistic portrayal of the typical hunter-gatherer body type.

And can anyone settle this little debate I've been having: does Venus have a head or not? That nub at the top looks like a hole you might put a string through, as if she were a pendant.

Inherent in many of these discussions (I am an archaeologist and have had several) is the idea that the artist who created the figurine is male. It's often an unspoken assumption - woman as muse and focus of the male gaze, man as creator. There is a lot of interesting feminist archaeological literature on these figures, including a paper I read (years ago, sorry can't remember author) suggesting that these figures were made by women who used their own bodies as models. Think about it - even if you are skinny, looking down at your own body, the breasts, belly, and hips are distorted and large-seeming, the legs smaller and fading into small feet. I'm not sure I buy that theory, but it is an interesting one.

Labeling this figurine as a sex symbol also reflects very western views of sexuality. Big breasts are sexy? Now THAT is a western view. Breasts (especially ones that large) are for babies in many parts of the world. I don't pretend to know what these mean, but if I had to guess, I would suggest that they had some kind of fertility function. FERTILITY - not neccessarily sex.

Oh, and Carl, these figures tend to have disproportionately small - but present - heads. It might be a head AND a hole for a pendant.

There are two things being confused here. One is the (false) contradiction of sexy-yet-fat and the other is the fertility/sexuality dichotomy.

On the first one, the thought patter goes something like: 'in those days a plump body signified health' -> 'so it was probably more attractive' -> 'so these guys probably thought this was sexy' -> 'obviously it is not for us but hey, whatever floats your boat'

So there is no contradiction, to me it's just the media trying to put themselves on our ancestor's snowshoes. As for the second one, ask the archaeologist above.

i don't know if major media organizations are capable of making the distinction between sexy and sexualized.

I'm most inclined to believe that such a figurine would have been a good luck charm of sorts for a pregnant woman. The large breasts certainly suggest babies and at a time when birthing had a high mortality rate women could use all the luck they could get.
I don't buy that it was a pornographic item for men. I think that concept is a causality of our modern mentality that anything nude has to do with sex.

Are we sure this is a person? All I see is chicken.

Think about it - even if you are skinny, looking down at your own body, the breasts, belly, and hips are distorted and large-seeming, the legs smaller and fading into small feet. I’m not sure I buy that theory, but it is an interesting one.

I don't really buy that. Generally when kids (and people who are bad at drawing) draw things they draw their mental image of what it *should* look like instead of what it *does* look like. So even if a kid is drawing a face in profile they give it two visible eyes, an entire mouth, etc. because they know that's what faces have (and ignore the actual shapes that are visible from the side perspective.) I imagine that early art would follow the same pattern; you know that humans generally have a head, two arms, a torso and two legs all attached together somehow, so these would show up in a self-portrait regardless of whether or not both of your legs are clearly visible when you look down, and without a great deal of attention to perspective and scale. Turning *exactly* what you are viewing on your own body into a figurine with similarly distorted-looking proportions seems way too sophisticated. Assigning values to body parts and then making the important stuff biggest seems more reasonable than trying to perfectly mimic the artist's POV with a carefully skewed scale.

I don't think the figure is "obviously sexy," although I find your comments concerning calling it sexy and the modern view of what sexy is, very interesting.

I think that Western culture is imposing its notions onto this figurine, as it does on many things it finds from ancient cultures. Looking at it from an Indigenous Earth-based worldview, which would be the worldview of the people who created it, gives many other possibilities. How about a figure showing a fertile "Mother Earth?" No one has mentioned the work of Marija Gimbutas, which addresses many figures that are similar in nature to this one, along with the markings on it.

We will never know exactly what this figurine meant to the people/person who carved it. But I think we could begin to learn a lot if we opened up our eyes and stopped looking at everything from within a Western/Modern/Dominant worldview. Perhaps doing so would teach us things we can use in our lives today.

The figure was not considered "fat" under our understanding of the word. Fat used to be seen as a blessing, meaning you retained the stored energy from what you ate, making it more likely you would survive the hardships of regular life, as well as being more able to give birth.

Also, figures such as this and the Venus of Willenndorf, were not really so much "fat" as pregnant. These female figurines show a woman who has proven her "usefulness" by conceiving. The large breasts and stomach show a female figure capable of creating, sustaining and supporting the life of an infant, making her desirable to mate with, making her important to the survival of the "tribe".

Unfortunatley our media no longer explains things properly, instead just giving us small blips of soundbytes. An actual explanation of the figure would take more time than a commercial break, and the attention span of the modern world is shrinking, so to get people to even notice an article about a strange-looking piece of art, they sensationalize it by calling it "sexy," as "sexy" is now a required word to denote something is attention-worthy.

I was about to comment on the possibility that the proportions of this figure might have more to do with fertility symbolism rather than 'sexiness', but Luey beat me to the punch. I was reading the Economist's take on this discovery last night, and was struck by the author's conclusion that 'it is, not to put too fine a point upon the matter, obscene.' Furthermore, in describing the figurine, the author suggested outright that its creator was male and that its discovery 'adds to the evidence that human thinking--or male thinking, at least--has hardly changed since the species evolved.' It's interesting that any time a female figure is depicted with exposed breasts and genitalia, whether it is a piece of modern art or an ancient artifact, the media concludes that it was created for the purpose of titillating male audiences. Given that it would be difficult if not impossible to put this discovery in its proper context, I think it's a bit early to conclude that it's a piece of 'paleolithic pornography'.

I'd say that distinguishing between fertility/sexuality/pornography is an interesting meta-commentary; the relationship between sex, breeding, & acknowledging that those are inter-related seems to be pretty contentious.

@Chicho - yeah, fertility / sexuality isn't a dichotomy, although neither are they the same thing. Humans are one of the very few species that separate the two. We can have sex for fun, sex for procreation, or both (or neither, I guess). If these are fertility statuettes then they may also have an element of sexuality to them, assuming that the society that created them links sex for fun and sex for procreation. (Pretty much every known human society fully understands the connection between sex and reproduction).

@Bagelsan - I like that point. It would be a big jump to begin playing with perspective in art, rather than a strict recreation of the model.

@Joanne - Gimbutas' work is only supported by some of the archaeological community. Critiques are that her theory (of a mother goddess cult) is not supported by evidence. To me, Gimbutas takes things way too far, in a direction we cannot prove. It is important to listen to her conclusions, but they are based fundamentally on conjecture, in my opinion.

We don't know what these symbolize, and will never know. I am deeply suspicious of anyone that ascribes meaning to the Venus figurines beyond vague suggestions. In this context (like much of archaeology), it is just as instructive a window into our OWN culture to see what people come up with as explanations for past behavior.

I'm so glad this has been posted and I enjoy the discussion. Luey has made the same points I have been thinking about since the figurine was introduced. The fact that it was called "sexy" assumed a heterosexual male creator/ viewer. This assumes that such figurines were used by men/ for men. As many of you have pointed out, this is likely a fallacious view at a time when fertility was desired, not good looks necessarily (the two were, I'm sure, conflated).

But to add to the discussion: the idea that women created/ used these is not too far off. If you look at early maps, for example, they are drawn in a single viewer's perspective, not the god-like perspective we have in maps today. (That is, houses on the other side of the street were drawn upside down, etc.) So I think the idea that women might have been conveying their own perspectives of their body is such an interesting one --- huge breasts, large stomach, small legs. In some ways it may tell us a lot about how women felt about themselves -- but, as we've all pointed out, I think it says more about my own perspective of womanhood at this time! What bothers me is that this idea -- that women might have created/ used these -- will simply not be taken seriously in our media at all.

"Humans are one of the very few species that separate the two."

Not that this has much to do with anything in this discussion- but I feel the need to correct this assumption. Actually, several species of animals actively masturbate and practice homosexual sex, both of which we would define as sex for pleasure rather than sex for procreation.

A friend sent me the link to this article with a note that said simply, "A woman figurine whose body looks like mine! Yes!" It brought grateful tears to my eyes to see a representation of this kind of female body nude - because it's also my body. And my mother's body. And my friend's body. This is what we really look like.

LOTS of us look basically like this. Not "distorted" or "swollen" or "grotesque" - just female. Seriously, none of the commenters here or at the BBC have ever met this woman's modern counterpart? Because I sure have.

On "obviously sexy", c.f. Samara Ginsberg's article, "They Came With My Body": on large breasts and the hypersexuality we often automatically imbue them with.

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/12/17/they-came-with-my-body

In the Venus of Willendorf, I see “A woman figurine whose body looks like mine!"

In this, like Kristin, I mostly see a chicken. And though lots of us have breasts and thighs that are proportionately this large, we do not also have tiny pinheads with holes through them.

It's an absolutely fascinating piece, and I love the discussions of fertility vs sexuality etc., but I don't really see any realism here.

I agree with several above posts. I have an interest in prehistoric religion, sort of a must with my job. The "fat" shows that the woman is capable of being a good mother, which is what prehistoric people would want. Fat also shows that the women either has someone who can provide for her, or can provide for herself. This would mean that she would make a good mother. It is quite possible that these figurines were made by women, (yes women, not men who would find it sexy,) as a tribute to their gods asking for fertility. Large breasts would provide adequate milk for children, making it more likely that they survive. There is not a "sexual" reference as modern people would look at it. They were meant to insure that women would be able to reproduce and pass on their genes, which is the first priority for prehistoric man, and woman.

I quite agree - I was moved to write about it as well:

http://oliolioli.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/venus-of-hohle-fels/

And added some pictures of the rather more beautiful objects found at Hohle Fels over the years.

so wait, now we're criticizing the media at the same time for A) calling this figurine "sexy" and B) making people think thin is sexy and fat is gross? The fact that media call this figurine "sexy" at least shows that the people saying so are stepping outside of the modern perceived worldview on sexiness. The articles about this piece aren't addressing the conflict between today's view of sexiness and the ancient view because that's a debate that's outside the scope of commenting on the piece and its discovery. The media didn't decide the piece was "sexy", they are following the lead of some archeologists and anthropologists who have described it to the media as a fertility piece, etc. The media aren't making up their own theories about it, they're justing hearing what the experts say and then, as usual, twisting the meaning a bit because they don't fully grasp the theories.

Jared: "Large breasts would provide adequate milk for children"

Um, milk supply isn't determined by breast size. They're not *literally* jugs.

I am absolutely perplexed by this idea everyone has that it's a sexualized image. It is quite obviously a symbol of fertility.

"The media didn’t decide the piece was “sexy”, they are following the lead of some archeologists and anthropologists who have described it to the media as a fertility piece, etc."

Sigh.
'fertility' = celebration of women's status as active agents who bring forth life.
'sexy' = women's physical bodies objectified for the pleasure of the male gaze.

@Penny, I mean symbolically.

My suspicion is that in the time period this artifact was made that fat people were not very common. And a carving of a fat person of any gender probably was a wish for better and more prosperous times that would allow a man or woman to be fat. It also known that in many ancient and primitive cultures that clothes were optional. So the fact that the carving depicts a nude female may or may not be prurient in nature.

I also reacted poorly to the use of the word "pornographic" (among others) in relationship to this piece. Yet, this particular word was not used by the writer of the story, but the expert commenting on the work. The media is simply emphasizing this "juicy" language that was planted (intentionally, I suspect) by those in a position to speak about the art object.

I understand the objection to the word "sexy," but I still find some of the discussion here frustrating. Why is there such a adamant desire to separate the (possibly) arousing or erotic qualities of this figure and the role of the figure as a fertility symbol? Doesn't sexual arousal and pleasure serve as a small incentive system for reproduction? Is it odd to suggest that a primitive people would associate these feelings with mating and reproduction? I think there's little to no grounds to suggest this figure had any masturbatory purpose, but I simply think it's quite possible that the artist had considered arousal when sculpting a childbearing figure.

I think the primary reason so much of this language was used had to do with the very sensitive portrayal of the female genitals, which have been stylized or eliminated in art-making for centuries.

What if we are all wrong and that is just a carving of a primitive chicken? Why does primitive art just have to be human?

I have been thinking about the "Venus" statues for quite some time now and thought I'd share my thoughts. As an artist I see this as a sculpted piece from a time when a small carved object made sense if you wanted something portable that you wished to carry with you. If you were away from your mate for extended periods of time (say for searching for prey or food opportunities) you may wish to bring with you something to help you when sexual urges come on.

Just as a business man on a trip today may turn to a magazine or movie in his hotel room, so could Paleolithic man have turned to the realistic three dimensional depiction of a woman resting in his left hand while freeing his right. Tilt the "Venus" figures over and cup them in your hand and you get a realistic woman lying on her back as if ready to procreate. In this position the folds and lines make sense and look 'right' just as the difference between how a woman's belly droops whilst standing versus lying down. One sees how this could be appealing to an ancient man and help in his 'fantasies' while away from home.

I should mention that I love you.

I know I just wandered onto your post, but I really appreciate you pointing out the hypocritical way the media covered this statue. I, however, do find it sexy and sexual but that's because I'm a fat woman who loves her body and who tends to be attracted to fat men.

The largeness of her breasts and genitals shows the importance of women. Before agriculture, almost all holy figures were female. Females can do what only the Earth can do and that's give birth and feed a child all with just her body. (And a man's DNA of course.) It's something that fascinated men and communities were female-centric until agriculture and man's realization that he could control sex with farm animals to create more or fewer animals, so women became property and holy figures became male.

I'm a feminist but I'm not demonizing men, of course. The whole point is to live forever through your genes and that's what men attempted, and, to some degree, did do. (Unfortunately, women have suffered for it.)

Anyhoo! The fact that you mentioned the odd way the media (which supoorts a certain image) described this figure (which is the not that media supported image) is very interesting to me. Thank you for it.

Big Smiles! Much Love!
-Lexie Di

Simple reason really.

In the days where fat was considered beautiful - it was only the rich and powerful who could be that fat. Therefore, likely under duress, these figures were carved to appease those who had power over the artists life. It was also rare, so it would be seen as exotic.

Because it's true that excess fat is not beautiful. It's a medical condition, one that impacts life in a very negative way. Its also a breeding ground for fungus and other bacterial nasties.

Nowadays everyone has the ability to be fat. The problem is people without self control, without will power. They all get obese and we find that massive unattractive.

Modern science has told us fat is bad.

There's a theory that a friend of mine holds and I think I agree with. She claims its very likely that this little statue was actually carved by a woman. She feels this is indicated by the proportions of the breasts and belly as well as the hips. This struck her when she saw it for the first time and realized that was what she saw every time she looked down when she was pregnant. The exaggerated breasts and belly due to pregnancy correspond with the portrayal in this statue. This would also lend support to the idea that this was a fertility statue, perhaps carved by a mother and given to a woman attempting to conceive a child as a way to illistrate her ultimate goal. Just a thought.

Not all female figurines from the Ice Age are pregnant or fat. For example, the Avdeevo and nearby sites have them of all ages and shapes. Paleo portable art was as diverse as individuals are. And it included the male principle, although less frequently, with phalluses.
But the later "earth mother goddess" sculptures of Malta, associated with the lack of evidence of violence - few skeletons found in the burial chambers there have signs of physical trauma - suggests a reverence for life in that community, which seems to have had no other idols. It makes sense to associate a pregnant female with the fecundity of the earth and burial with restoring to the earth what it gave us. We have no idea what the society of the temple-builders of Malta was like, apart from not being warlike. It is a mystery why they omitted the male creative principle from their iconography.

The statues tied to Baalism were also highly exaggerated, but more along the lines of today's standards. Baalism was very sexual in nature.

"contemporary U.S. perspective, the figure would not be considered sexy. [by TV and magazine standars those are not the People's standards at all...if propaganda say so that doesnt mean its tyrue] Bodies such as that portrayed in this “Venus” are considered grotesque today and people who are sexually attracted to such bodies are considered deviant" = lisa don't know much really if she agrees with this bull... that is the definition is pinpointing the utopia of american aestheticism not REAL ascetic archetypes nor the instinctive erotic perceptions.

EARLIEST HOMOSAPIENS, SOME OF THE REASONS PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND IS BECAUSE, WE'RE LOOKING AT AFRICAN ART SHOWING
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE WOMAN. THE MOST EARLIEST HUMANS TO OCCUPY EUROPE WAS AFRICANS. CLEARLY THIS IS AFRICAN ART.