Venus of Lespugue

©Berkay Dinçer

Venus of Lespugue

This photo is taken in the Huguenots Cave, Ardeche (France). This figurine is a reproduction.

The Venus of Lespugue is a Venus figurine, a statuette of a nude female figure from approximately 25,000 BC. It was discovered in 1922 in the Rideaux cave of Lespugue (Haute-Garonne) in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Approximately 6 inches (147 mm) tall, it is carved from tusk ivory, and was damaged during excavation.

The original Venus of Lespugue resides in France, at the Musée de L'Homme.

Venus of Brassempouy

©Berkay Dinçer

Venus of Brassempouy

This photo is taken in the "İnsanın İzlerinde" exhibition, İstanbul. This figurine is a replica.

The Venus of Brassempouy is a fragmentary ivory figurine from the Upper Palaeolithic which was discovered at Brassempouy, France in 1892. About 25,000 years old, it is one of the earliest known realistic representations of a human face.

The Venus of Brassempouy was carved from mammoth ivory. She is 3.65 cm high, 2.2 cm deep and 1.9 cm wide. Her face is triangular and seems tranquil. While forehead, nose and brows are carved in relief, the mouth is absent. A vertical crack on the right side of the face is linked to the internal structure of the ivory. On the head is a checkerboard-like pattern formed by two series of shallow incisions at right angles to each other; it has been interpreted as a wig, a hood, or simply a representation of hair.

Even though the head was discovered so early in the development of modern archaeology that its context could not be studied with all the attention it would have deserved, there is no doubt that the Venus of Brassempouy belonged to an Upper Palaeolithic material culture, the Gravettian (29,000–22,000 BP), more precisely the Middle Gravettian, with "Noailles" burins circa 26,000 to 24,000 BP.

She is more or less contemporary with the other Palaeolithic Venus figurines, such as those of Lespugue, Dolní Věstonice, Willendorf, etc. Nonetheless, she is distinguished among the group by the realistic character of the representation.

The Venus of Brassempouy is preserved in the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris.

Venus of Willendorf

© Berkay Dinçer

Venus of Willendorf

This photo is taken in the "İnsanın İzlerinde" exhibition, İstanbul. This figurine is a reproduction.

Venus of Willendorf, also known as the Woman of Willendorf, is an 11.1 cm (4 3/8 inches) high statuette of a female figure. It was discovered in 1908 by archaeologist Josef Szombathy at a paleolithic site near Willendorf, a village in Lower Austria near the city of Krems. It is carved from an oolitic limestone that is not local to the area, and tinted with red ochre.

Since this figure's discovery and naming, several similar statuettes and other forms of art have been discovered. They are collectively referred to as Venus figurines, even though they pre-date the mythological figure of Venus, and are not thought to be representations of that goddess.

The Venus is not a realistic portrait but rather an idealization of the female figure. Her vulva, breasts, and swollen belly, are heavily pronounced, suggesting a strong connection to fertility. Her tiny arms are folded over her breasts. The figure has no visible face, her head being covered with circular horizontal bands of what might be rows of plaited hair, or a type of headdress.

Original Venus of Willendorf is part of the collection of the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna.