Venus of Lespugue explained

Venus of Lespugue
Created:	26,000-24,000 BP
Discovered:	Lespugue (Haute-Garonne), France

The Venus of Lespugue is a Venus figurine, a statuette of a female figure of the Gravettian, dated to between 26,000 and 24,000 years ago.

Discovery

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.

Features

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.

Location

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

See also

• Art of the Upper Paleolithic
• List of Stone Age art

External links

• Don Hitchcock (Don's Maps): "The Lespugue Venus is a 25 000 years old ivory figurine of a nude female figure"
• https://web.archive.org/web/20040413133422/http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/imageswomen/lespugue.html

Notes and References

1. 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, ASIN 0393035060.