Female Limestone Figurine

Ritual or religious use

Willendorf type, Autstria

Gravettian
34 000 to 25 000 years

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.