Venus Figurine

Small female statuettes of the Upper Palaeolithic, found from southwest France to European Russia - statuettes, sculptured in the round, of naked and often obese women. The figures, sometimes with exaggerated abdomen, breasts, and buttocks, were made of clay, stone, antler, bone, limestone, steatite, or mammoth ivory, and have been found on Eastern Gravettian and Upper Périgordian sites from the Pyrenees to eastern Russia. The heads are featureless and the legs and arms are little emphasized. They mainly date from the period 30,000 to 15,000 years ago; a later series is different in character, more slender and hollow stomached, and are contemporary with the Magdalenian.

One of the most remarkable features of the late Palaeolithic are the female figurines which have been called venuses. They are made in all kinds of material, including ivory, bone, limestone and steatite and are even modelled in clay. Most typically, the figures are large-stomached and largebreasted, and they sometimes have enlarged buttocks as in ‘steatopygia’. The heads are featureless and the legs and arms are little emphasized. They mainly date from the period 30,000 to 15,000 years ago and are found from France to Russia. A later series is different in character, being more slender and hollow stomached; these later figurines are contemporary with the Magdalenian.