Female Limestone Figurine
Ritual or religious use
Willendorf type, Autstria
Gravettian
34 000 to 25 000 years
The imposing forms of this figurine […] support the idea of a “Queen Mother” who may have dominated the prehistoric ages.
C. Cohen, La femme des origines, C.N.R.S, Paris. 2003
Commentary :
Gravettian female figurines are small, average ten centimetres in length for the largest and only 3 centimetres for the smallest examples
The small size of these figurines makes them easy to transport. Figurines could thus be exchanged between groups, handled in privacy, or kept on oneself.
Independent of their size or material, they all convey the same idea of a woman’s nude body.
In the Danube Valley of Austria, several female figurines were recovered from a single Gravettian settlement. The most remarkable of them, the “Venus of Willendorf”, is sculpted from soft limestone which is rare around the site.