"Venus" of Willendorf


c. 24,000-22,000 BCE 

Oolitic limestone

43/8 inches (11.1 cm) high

(Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna)







Venus of Lespugue

FRONT

(Aurignacian Period)

height 147 mm (approx. 6 inches)

(Museé des Antiquités Nationales, Paris)







Venus from Savignano

height 22 cm (approx. 8 3/4")
 
(Aurignacian-Perigordian Period)








Venus of Laussel

c. 20,000-18,000 BCE

limestone

height 17 inches (43 cm)

Dordogne, France

(Musée d'Aquitaine, Bordeaux)






























   


 
Women in Prehistory

BIBLIOGRAPHY


  


Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe
















General


    

  • Myth, Religion, and Mother Right. Selected Writings of J. J. Bachofen, (translated adapted by Ralph Manheim from the enlarged 1954 edition of Johann Jakob Bachofen: Mutterrecht und Urreligion, a selection edited by Rudolf Marx  and first published by Alfred Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart, in 1926), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.

    


  • Paul G. Bahn and Jean Vertut, Images of the Ice Age, New York: Facts On File, 1988.

    


  • Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, New York: W. W. Norton, 1994.

    


  • Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, London: Penguin, 1993.

    


  • Joseph Campbell, The Way of the Animal Powers, vol. 1, Historical Atlas of World Mythology, London: Summerfield Press, 1983. Section "Symbols of Female Power" [pp. 66-73].
    


  • Henri Delporte, L'Image de la Femme dans l'Art Préhistorique, Paris: Picard, 1979.

    


  • Margaret Ehrenberg, Women in Prehistory, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.

    


  • Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade, San Francisco: Harper, 1987.

    


  • Michael Gill, Image of the Body, New York: Doubleday, 1989.

    


  • Gimbutas, Marija, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 7000-3500 B.C., Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1982.

    


  • Alexander Marshack, The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man's First Art, Symbol and Notation, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972. Chapter XIII, "Sex and the Goddess" [pp. 281-340]
    


  • Paolo Preziosi, Palaeolithic Art, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960.

    


  • Patricia C. Rice, "Prehistoric Venuses: Symbols of Motherhood or Womanhood?" Journal of Anthropological Research, 37, 1981, 402-414.

    


  • N. K. Sanders, Prehistoric Art in Europe, Harmondsworth: Penguin (The Pelican History of Art), 1968.

    


  • Barbara G. Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, New York: HarperCollins, 1983.

    





"Venus" of Willendorf


    

  • Johann Jacob Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht. Eine untersuchung uber die gynaikokratie der alten welt nach ihrer religiosen und rechtlichen natur, vol. I, Stuttgart, Krais & Hoffmann, 1861 (reprint Basel, B. Schwabe, 1948)

    


  • Franz Eppel, "Les objets d'art paléolithique en Autriche," Préhistoire Ariègeiose (Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique de l'Ariège), 27, 1972, 73-81.

    


  • Chris Knight, Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991.

    



  • Karl J. Narr, "Weibliche symbol-plastik der älteren Steinzeit," Antaios, 2, 1960, 132-157.

    


  • Marcel Otte, "Revision de la sequence du Paleolithique Superieur de Willendorf (Autriche)," Bulletin de l'Istitut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, 60, 1990, 219-228.

    


  • Luce Passemard, Les Statuettes Féminines Paléolithiques dites Vénus Stéatopyges, Nîmes: Teissier, 1938.

    


  • Edouard Piette, "La station de Brassempouy et les statuettes humaines de la période glyptique," L'Anthropologie, 6, 1895,129-151.

    


  • Josef Szombathy, "Die Aurignacienschichten in Löss von Willendorf," Korrespondenzblatt der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte, XL, 1909, 85-88.

    


  • Peter J. Ucko, Anthropomorphic Figurines of Predynastic Egypt and Neolithic Crete with Comparative Material from the Prehistoric Near East and Mainland Greece, London: Andrew Szmidla, 1968.

    



  • Ernst E. Wrescher, "Red Ochre and Human Evolution: A Case for Discussion," Current Anthropology, 21, 1980, 631-44.

    



"Venus" of Laussel


    

  • Sigfried Giedion, The Eternal Present, vol. 1, The Beginnings of Art, Bollingen 35, 6.1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962 [p. 470].
    


  • J. G. Lalanne, "Découverte d'un bas-relief à réprésentation humaine dans les fouilles de Laussel," L'Anthropologie, 22, 1911, pp. 257-260.
    


  • J. G. Lalanne and Jean Bouyssonie, "Les Gisement paléolithique de Laussel," L'Anthropologie, 50, 1941-46, pp. 1-163.
    





















IMAGES OF WOMEN IN ANCIENT ART

Chris 
  Witcombe | Sweet Briar College