Curious about what path the Venus might have taken to arrive ultimately in Lower Austria, the researchers considered different routes and “found a way that would have been very obvious” - a roughly 600-mile route which would have required crossing the Danube. These hunter-gatherers were some of the first modern humans in Europe, “traveling through the countryside following the deer and rivers,” Weber explains. This finding is significant because it gives us insight into the migratory tendencies and patterns of those who had made and protected the Venus of Willendorf. “It turned out that northern Italy has a perfect match,” Weber said. They took oolite samples from across Europe and compared them to the Venus of Willendorf. Given the hints offered by the shells, they enlarged the radius of their search - from France to eastern Ukraine, and from Germany to Sicily. The researchers found that the stone was packed with a pattern of layers of different densities, with pieces of shells baked in. In an interview, Weber told Hyperallergic that the oolitic limestone was “not homogeneous at all inside,” a boon to their attempt to track down the Venus’ hometown. Using micro-computed tomography (CT) scanning, Weber and his team were able to take high-resolution cross-sectional images of the Venus of Willendorf. Shells embedded in the oolite helped researchers broaden the geographic radius of their search.Ī paper summarizing the new research was published in Scientific Reports. This feature set the Venus of Willendorf apart from other venus figurines found elsewhere, as the only one in the world fashioned from this material. The figurine was long speculated to have come from outside Austria, given that it is made from oolitic limestone, a rock that does not exist in or near Willendorf. The Venus of Willendorf is faceless with plaited hair and large breasts and hips, assumed by many over the decades to represent fertility. Micro-CT scanning gave researchers a better understanding of the origins of the oolite limestone which the Venus of Willendorf is molded from.įirst excavated in 1908, the statuette, which measures less than four and a half inches in height, is a prime example of portable art - objects made out of stone, ivory, and other types of animal bone that would be easily transportable for migratory people during the Paleolithic period. Now, thanks to research led by anthropologist Gerhard Weber at the University of Vienna, we know that the stone used to mold the figurine originated from northern Italy, over 350 miles away from Willendorf in Austria and across a formidable mountain range, the Alps. The statuette, as suggested by its name, was quickly saddled with the burdens of human history, sexualized with a blithe reference to antiquity although the context of its creation in Paleolithic times remained obscure. The Venus of Willendorf, estimated at between 25,000 to 30,000 years old, has long been a source of contemporary mystery and intrigue, and for good reason - little was known about its origins and purpose.
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