Calcite Female Figurine
Ritual use
Tursac type, Dordogne
Gravettian
34 500 to 25 000 years
Si un artiste moderne, s’inspirant du thème classique de la fécondité […] voulait créer une vénus, Son œuvre pourrait présenter des analogies avec celle de l’artiste périgordien de Tursac.
H. Delporte, Une nouvelle statuette paléolithique : la Vénus de Tursac. B.S.P.F. Paris 1959
Commentary :
The female statuette from Tursac is sculpted from calcite, a mineral deposited by water in some caves in limestone regions.
This statuette was discovered in a Gravettian rock shelter of the Vézère Valley.
The distinctive style of this work of art reflects its exceptional plastic qualities. Though the crystalline material enhances the fluid forms of the female body, it is neither an ornament nor a talisman, since the appendage at the base of the body allows it to be held vertically or to be attached to a support.
Its creation and then placement in the sacred space of this inhabited cave reveals the existence of beliefs that were probably related to femininity, but also to water and the underground world.