Venus of Brassempouy time period Paleolithic
The Venus of Brassempouy (French: la Dame de Brassempouy, [la dam də bʁasɛ̃pwi], meaning "Lady of Brassempouy", or Dame à la Capuche, "Lady with the Hood") is a fragmentary ivory figurine from the Upper Palaeolithic, apparently broken from a larger figure at some time unknown. It was discovered in a cave at Brassempouy, France in 1894. About 25,000 years old, it is one of the earliest known realistic representations of a human face.Discovery
Brassempouy is a small village in the département of Landes in southwest France. Two caves near the village, 100 metres from each other, were among the first Paleolithic sites to be explored in France. They are known as the Galerie des Hyènes (Gallery of the Hyenas) and the Grotte du Pape (the "Grotto of the Pope"). The Venus of Brassempouy was discovered in the Grotto of the Pope in 1894, accompanied by at least eight other human figures. These may be an example of unfinished work, as if the artist or artists carved several figurines at the same time.Description
The Venus of Brassempouy was carved from mammoth ivory. According to archaeologist Paul Bahn the head is "unsexed, although it is usually called a 'Venus' or a 'lady'". The head is 3.65 cm high, 2.2 cm deep and 1.9 cm wide. While forehead, nose and brows are carved in relief, the mouth is absent. A vertical crack on the right side of the face is a consequence of 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 with geometric decoration, or simply a representation of hair styled in cornrows.Randall White observed in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory (December 2006), "The figurines emerged from the ground into a colonial intellectual and socio-political context nearly obsessed with matters of race." Although the style of representation is essentially realistic, the proportions of the head do not correspond exactly to any known human population of the present or past. White has claimed that, since the mid-twentieth century, concerns of interpretative questions have changed from race to womanhood and fertility.Date
Although the head was discovered so early that its context could not be studied thoroughly, scholars agree that the Venus of Brassempouy belonged to an Upper Palaeolithic material culture, the Gravettian (29,000–22,000 BP). More precisely, they date the figurine to the Middle Gravettian period, with "Noailles" burins circa 26,000 to 24,000 BP. It is more or less contemporary with the other Palaeolithic Venus figurines, such as those of Lespugue, Dolní Věstonice, Willendorf, etc. Nonetheless, it is distinguished among the group by the realistic character of the representation.
Other broadly contemporary representations of female faces include the female face from Dolní Věstonice (c. 26,000 BP), or the Venuses with faces of the Mal'ta Culture (Siberia, 24,000 BP).
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