Venus figurines from Nebra

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Venus figurines and anthropomorphic figure of Nebra

The Venus figurines from Nebra are highly stylized statuettes from the late Upper Palaeolithic ( Magdalenian ), which are among the oldest known works of art in Saxony-Anhalt . They were made in the 12th to 11th millennium BC. And excavated at Nebra in 1962 . The figurines can be seen in the permanent exhibition in the State Museum of Prehistory (Halle) . In 2009 the Nebra statuettes were presented in the Moravské zemské muzeum ( Brno , Czech Republic ) and in 2011 in the Musée National de Préhistoire ( Paris , France ).

The Venus figurines from Nebra are located in room 4 of the State Museum for Prehistory

Find history

The figurines were found in the summer of 1962 during an archaeological emergency recovery on the grounds of the Altenburg , a red sandstone spur in the Unstrut valley northeast of Nebra ( Burgenlandkreis ). A 120 m² living space of hunters from the late Upper Palaeolithic (12th – 11th millennium BC), the Magdalenian, was uncovered. In total, the excavators, Volker Toepfer, Helmut Hanitzsch and Dietrich Mania , discovered about sixty pit-like depressions and parts of a light red colored flagstone pavement on a semicircular area of ​​9 m × 3.5 m, with the Stone Age traces partly from later Bronze Age settlement remains and a medieval fortification ditch had been destroyed. Most of the pits were more than half a meter deep and contained, in addition to a large number of artifacts made of stone, antlers and bones, well-preserved remains of the hunted animals and sandstone slabs that had apparently been used to wedge the tent poles. The analysis of the animal bones found showed the fauna , which was composed mainly of wild horses and reindeer . Furthermore, mountain hare , arctic fox and ptarmigan were detected. The finds and findings thus point to a Paleolithic winter camping site of the Ice Age hunters and suggest an older stage of the Magdalenian era.

description

The four extremely simplified statuettes are 5.2 to 6.6 cm in length. In the side view, three of them show the silhouette of a human body with a rod-shaped upper body and accentuated buttocks. They are undecorated and are shown without a head or feet. Because of the partially indicated breasts, they are interpreted as depictions of women. The fourth figure differs from the aforementioned female statuettes. It has the same lower part as the female figurine, but its upper body is shown differently.

Figurines length width thickness material Reference
Female figure 1 6.6 cm 1.1 cm 0.6 cm ivory Pit 50
Female figure 2 6.3 cm 1.1 cm 0.5 cm bone Pit 33
Female figure 3 5.2 cm 0.95 cm 0.4 cm ivory Pit 07
Anthropomorphic figure 5.2 cm 0.95 cm 0.4 cm ivory Pit 22

Female figure 1: This female figurine was made from light yellowish ivory . Its straight, rod-shaped and long top, which is slightly inclined backwards, shows no hint of a breast. The seat area is overemphasized and has a convex-triangular shape.

The statuette was in pit 50, the six thin, vertical sandstone slabs of which formed a box with dimensions of approximately 20 × 30 cm. The joints between the stones were filled with bone and a horse's shoulder blade. A 60 × 70 cm long lying sandstone plate covered this stone box. Many bones and fragments of bones, especially from horses and reindeer, as well as a broken, shell-like piece of sintered lime , which may have been used as an oil lamp, fat lamp or sacrificial bowl, were stored in this pit. The pit also contained about forty flint blades and pleats and twenty-five tools of various types. Like the pit, the stone box was colored with ocher.

Female figure 2: It is a figure carved from bone (reindeer antlers). Their coloring is white-gray with a reddish tinge. Its lower part is pointed and swings out into a convex overemphasized seat area. On the other hand, her top with a strikingly carved chest is inclined slightly backwards.

This female statuette came from tent pole pit 33. The pit had a round floor plan and was deepened to 65 cm. It also contained about forty bones or bone fragments, 15 devices, 11 burin scraps and 57 blades and pleats.

Female figure 3: The carved and polished figure was made from ivory, like the first figure. It is shown with a stylized , carved out breast and a wide, arched buttocks area.

This female figurine was found broken in tent pole pit 7. The pit had a cylindrical shape with a diameter of 30 cm. It also contained about eighty bones, bone fragments, and a fish vertebra. In this pit there were also twenty tools, twelve scraps of burins, eighty blades and pleats made of white patinated flint.

Anthropomorphic figure: The stylized, anthropomorphic ivory figure was discovered in pit 22. Their lower part is shaped like the female figures, with their backs forming a kind of hump. She also has a head tilted slightly forward.

  • Female figure 1

  • Female figure 2

  • Female figure 3

  • Anthropomorphic figure

"Type Gönnersdorf"

According to the characteristics described, the Nebra female figurines are assigned to the " Gönnersdorf type ". The term “Gönnersdorf type” was defined by Gerhard Bosinski on the basis of the stylized Gönnersdorf women's engravings and statuettes of this type.

Characteristic features of the "Gönnersdorf type":

  1. There is no head reproduced
  2. the figures have a slim body,
  3. the figures have accentuated buttocks that stretch backwards.
  4. The effect of the representations lies primarily in the profile view.

Christiane Höck has also dealt with this topic and preferred the term “Gönnersdorf representation principle”.

The female figurines at the sites: Gourdan - Courbet - Fontalès - Mégarnie - Gönnersdorf - Andernach - Hohlenstein - Petersfels - Monruz - Oelknkitz - Garsitz - Pekarna - Býčí skála - Menzin - Mežirič - Dobraničevka also belong to this type. A total of around 95 statuettes of the "Gönnersdorf type" from 17 sites are known.

Cultural meaning

Sandstone slab with a sketch of a woman from Bad Kosen-Lengefeld, Burgenlandkreis, Saxony-Anhalt
Distribution of Ice Age female figurines of the Gönnersdorf type in Europe

According to Dietrich Mania, the Nebra women's statuettes “indicate the formation of a shamanistic world of ideas that determined the thinking and actions of these hunters and gatherers”. You could thus represent animal mothers or the mistress of animals. The figurines are high-ranking spirit beings who were responsible for the fertility of animals and for the prosperity of humans.

Similar representations of women find themselves as engravings on sandstone slabs , for example, of Bad Kosen - Lengefeld (near Naumburg in Saxony-Anhalt) and slates , for example from Gönnersdorf in the Rhineland. However, Gönnersdorf's engravings do not just depict a woman, but a group of women. As a result, these engravings are interpreted as dance scenes. With regard to the plastic statuettes by Nebra, it is conceivable that they could also be arranged in a scenic manner in connection with rituals and celebrations.

Comparable, highly schematic depictions of women are known as paintings or engravings on rock walls or slates and as statuettes from at least 28 sites. Their distribution ranges from southern France (e.g. Niaux, Rond-du-Barry) through Germany (e.g. Andernach , Gönnersdorf , Oelknitz ) to the Ukraine (e.g. Dobraničevka, Menzin, Mežirič). The sizes of the figures are very different. The smallest object with a height of 1.5 cm comes from Petersfels , while the figure from Andernach with a height of 21 cm is currently the largest. The wide distribution of these figurines proves the exchange and communication between the mobile hunter groups. According to J. Grünberg, the emphasis on the chest and buttocks is a symbol of fertility and sexuality. The type of female, figurative representation changed in the course of the Upper Palaeolithic ( Gravettia around 31,000 BC to Magdalenian around 12,000 BC) from lush (e.g. Venus vom Hohlefels , Venus von Willendorf ) to abstract forms .

literature

  • Zoya A. Abramova: On the question of depictions of women in the Magdalenian. In: Kratkie soobščenija JJMK 76, 1959, 103-107.
  • Gerhard Bosinski, Gisela Fischer: The depictions of people from Gönnersdorf of the excavation in 1968. (The Magdalenian site Gönnersdorf 1). Steiner Franz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1974, ISBN 3-515-01927-8 .
  • Gerhard Bosinski: Les figurations féminines de la fin des temps glaciaires. In: Norbert Aujoulat (ed.): Mille et une femmes de la fin des temps glaciaires. Musée National de Préhistoire - Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, 17 June – 19 September, Paris 2011, pp. 49–72.
  • Ingmar M. Braun: The Upper Palaeolithic cabaret in Central Germany. In: Praehistoria Thuringica 12, 2009, pp. 164-179.
  • Henri Delporte : The problem of statuettes féminines dans le leptolithique occidental. In: Mitteilungen der Anthropologische Gesellschaft Wien 42, 1962, pp. 53–60.
  • Rudolf Feustel : Upper Palaeolithic hunters in Thuringia. Weimar 1961.
  • Judith M. Grünberg : Nebra, Ldkr. Burgenlandkreis. In: Siegfried Fröhlich (Ed.): From the prehistory of Saxony-Anhalt. State Museum for Prehistory Halle (Saale), Halle (Saale) 1995, ISBN 3-910010-13-X , No. 2.
  • Judith M. Grünberg: Women in the art of the Paleolithic. In: Harald Meller (ed.): Beauty, Power and Death. 120 finds from 120 years of the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology Saxony-Anhalt , Halle (Saale) 2001, pp. 196–197, ISBN 3-910010-64-4 .
  • Judith M. Grünberg: The life of the modern man at the time of the Magdalenian. Hunting and collecting strategies and the site near Saaleck. In: Harald Meller (ed.): Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. Catalogs for the permanent exhibition in the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Vol. 1, Halle 2004, pp. 251–260.
  • Helmut Hanitzsch, Volker Toepfer: Excavations on the "Altenburg" near Nebra (Unstrut). In: Ausgrabungen und Funde 8, 1963, pp. 6-9.
  • Christiane Höck: The female statuettes of the Magdalenian of Gönnersdorf and Andernach. In: Yearbook of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseums 40, 1993, pp. 253-316.
  • Michel Lorblanchet, Marie-Catherine Welte: Les figurations féminines stylisées du Magdalénien supérieur du Quercy. In: Bulletin de la Société des études littéraires, scientifiques et artistiques du Lot 108, 3, 1987, pp. 3-57.
  • Dietrich Mania , Volker Toepfer, Emanuel Vlek: Nebra - a Upper Paleolithic open-air station in the Saale-Unstrut area. State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology Saxony-Anhalt, Halle (Saale) 1999, ISBN 3-910010-33-4 .
  • Dietrich Mania: hunters and gatherers 15,000 years ago in the Unstruttal. In: Harald Meller (ed.): Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. Catalogs for the permanent exhibition in the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Vol. 1, Halle (Saale) 2004, pp. 233–249.
  • Harald Meller (ed.): People change. Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic. Booklets accompanying the permanent exhibition in the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Vol. 2, Halle (Saale) 2011.
  • Eduard Peters: The paleolithic cultural site Peterfels. Augsburg 1930.
  • Eduard Peters, Volker Toepfer: The conclusion of the excavations at Petersfels. In: Prähistorische Zeitschrift 23, 1932, pp. 155–199.
  • Gustav Riek : The ice age hunter station at Vogelherd in the Lone Valley. Tübingen 1934.
  • Karin Terberger: Finds from the Magdalenian station Saaleck. In: Jahresschrift zur Mitteldeutschen Vorgeschichte 70, 1987, pp. 95-134.
  • Volker Toepfer: Three late Paleolithic female statuettes from the Unstrut valley near Nebra. In: Find reports from Swabia NF booklet 17 (Festschrift for Gustav Riek). Stuttgart 1965, pp. 103-111.
  • Volker Toepfer: Stratigraphy and Ecology of the Palaeolithic. Periglacial - Loess - Paleolithic in the Upper Pleistocene of the German Democratic Republic. Supplementary booklet No. 274 to Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen, Gotha / Leipzig 1970, pp. 329–422.
  • Sergej Aleksandrovič Tokarev: On the importance of depictions of women in the Paleolithic. In: Publications of the Museum für Völkerkunde Leipzig 11, 1961, pp. 682–692.
  • Karel Valoch, Martina Lázničková-Galetová (eds.): The Oldest Art of Central Europe. The first international exhibition of original art from the Palaeolithic. Brno 2009.

Web links

Commons : Nebra figurines of Venus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Judith M. Grünberg: Women in the art of the Paleolithic. In: Harald Meller (ed.): Beauty, Power and Death. 120 finds from 120 years of the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 196.
  2. ↑ Harald Meller (ed.): People change. Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic. Booklets accompanying the permanent exhibition in the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Vol. 2, Halle (Saale) 2011, pp. 33–36.
  3. ↑ Karel Valoch, Martina Lázničková-Galetová (ed.): The Oldest Art of Central Europe. The first international exhibition of original art from the Palaeolithic. Brno 2009.
  4. ^ Gerhard Bosinski: Les figurations féminines de la fin des temps glaciaires. In: Norbert Aujoulat (ed.): Mille et une femmes de la fin des temps glaciaires. Musée National de Préhistoire - Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, 17 June – 19 September, Paris 2011, pp. 49–72.
  5. ↑ Volker Toepfer: Three late Palaeolithic female statuettes from Unstruttal near Nebra. In: Find reports from Swabia NF booklet 17 (Festschrift for G. Riek). Stuttgart 1965, pp. 104-105.
  6. ^ A b Svend Hansen : Archaeological finds from Germany. Booklet accompanying the photo exhibition, Berlin 2010, p. 18.
  7. ↑ a b c Dietrich Mania : Hunters and gatherers 15,000 years ago in the Unstruttal. In: Harald Meller (ed.): Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. Catalogs for the permanent exhibition in the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Vol. 1. Halle (Saale) 2004, p. 248.
  8. ↑ Volker Toepfer: Three late Palaeolithic female statuettes from Unstruttal near Nebra. In: Find reports from Swabia NF booklet 17 (Festschrift for G. Riek). Stuttgart 1965, p. 105.
  9. ↑ a b c d Dietrich Mania : Nebra - a Upper Palaeolithic open-air station in the Saale-Unstrut area. Publications of the State Office for Archeology Saxony-Anhalt 54. Halle (Saale) 1999, p. 116.
  10. ↑ Volker Toepfer: Three late Palaeolithic female statuettes from Unstruttal near Nebra. In: Find reports from Swabia NF booklet 17 (Festschrift for G. Riek). Stuttgart 1965, p. 109.
  11. ^ A b Svend Hansen : Archaeological finds from Germany. Booklet accompanying the photo exhibition, Berlin 2010, p. 19.
  12. ↑ Volker Toepfer: Three late Palaeolithic female statuettes from Unstruttal near Nebra. In: Find reports from Swabia NF booklet 17 (Festschrift for G. Riek). Stuttgart 1965, p. 106.
  13. ↑ a b Volker Toepfer: Three late Palaeolithic female statuettes from Unstruttal near Nebra. In: Find reports from Swabia NF booklet 17 (Festschrift for G. Riek). Stuttgart 1965, p. 107.
  14. ^ A b G. Bosinski, G. Fischer: The depictions of people from Gönnersdorf from the excavation in 1968. The Magdalenian site Gönnersdorf 1, Wiesbaden 1974.
  15. ↑ G. Bosinski, G. Fischer: The depictions of people from Gönnersdorf of the excavation in 1968. The Magdalenian site Gönnersdorf 1, Wiesbaden 1974, p. 99.
  16. ^ Christiane Höck: The female statuettes of the Magdalenian of Gönnersdorf and Andernach. In: Yearbook of the RGZM. Vol. 40, 1993, pp. 253-316.
  17. ^ Christiane Höck: The female statuettes of the Magdalenian of Gönnersdorf and Andernach. In: Yearbook of the RGZM. Vol. 40, 1993, pp. 309-313
  18. ^ K. Terberger: Finds of the Magdalenian station Saaleck. In: Jahresschrift zur Mitteldeutschen Vorgeschichte 70, 1987, pp. 95-134.
  19. ↑ JM Grünberg: The life of modern man at the time of the Magdalenian. Hunting and collecting strategies and the site near Saaleck. In: H. Meller (Ed.): Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. Catalogs for the permanent exhibition in the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle. Vol. 1, Halle 2004, pp. 251–260.
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on July 22, 2012 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 17 ′ 7.4 "  N , 11 ° 34 ′ 33.1"  E