Venus of Lespugue
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The Venus of Lespugue is a Venus figurine, a statuette of a nude female figure of the Gravettian, dated to between 26,000 and 24,000 years ago. It was discovered in 1922 in the Rideaux cave of Lespugue (Haute-Garonne) in the foothills of the Pyrenees by René de Saint-Périer (1877-1950).
Approximately 6 inches (150 mm) tall, it is carved from tusk ivory, and was damaged during excavation.
Of all the steatopygous Venus figurines discovered from the upper Paleolithic, the Venus of Lespugue, if the reconstruction is sound, appears to display the most exaggerated female secondary sexual characteristics, especially the extremely large, pendulous breasts.
According to textile expert Elizabeth Wayland Barber,[1] the statue displays the earliest representation found of spun thread, as the carving shows a skirt hanging from below the hips, made of twisted fibers, frayed at the end.
The Venus of Lespugue resides in France, at the Musée de l'Homme.
[edit] Relationship to Music
It has been observed that the proportions of the statue mimic the ratios of the modern Dorian mode.[2] It has also been conjectured that this reltionship demonstrates that the cultural advancement of paleolithic peoples have been substantially underestimated.[3]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Elizabeth Wayland Barber, (1994) Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, W. W. Norton and Company, pg. 44, ISBN 0393-03506-0.
- ^ Clint Goss (2012). "Venus of Lespugue". Flutopedia. http://Flutopedia.com/venus.htm. Retrieved 2012-01-08.
- ^ Ralph H. Abraham; William Irwin Thompson (2006). "The Canon of Lespugue". The Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers (ESOP) 24: 170-175.
[edit] External links
- http://www.hominids.com/donsmaps/lespuguevenus.html
- http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/imageswomen/lespugue.html
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