The Venus of Petřkovice ( cz, Petřkovická venuše or ''Landecká venuše'') is a pre-historic

Venus figurine A Venus figurine is any Upper Palaeolithic statuette portraying a woman, usually carved in the round.Fagan, Brian M., Beck, Charlotte, "Venus Figurines", ''The Oxford Companion to Archaeology'', 1996, Oxford University Press, pp. 740–741 Most ...

, a

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...

statuette of a nude female figure, dated to about 23,000

BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

(

Gravettian The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian circa 33,000 years BP. It is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified, and had mostly disappeared by ...

industry Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...

) in what is today the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

Discovery

It was found within the current city limits of

Ostrava Ostrava (; pl, Ostrawa; german: Ostrau ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic, and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 280,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four riv ...

(Ostrava-Petřkovice),

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

, in the

, by archaeologist Bohuslav Klíma on 14 July 1953. It was beneath a

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks an ...

molar at an ancient settlement of mammoth hunters. Many stone artifacts and skeletal fragments were also found nearby.

Features

The statue measures 4.5 x 1.5 x 1.4 cm and is a headless torso of a woman carved from iron ore ( hematite). Uniquely, the absence of the head appears to be the author's intention. Also, unlike other prehistoric Venus figurines, it shows a slender young woman or girl with small breasts.

Location

It is now in the Archeological Institute, Brno, but between 7 February - 26 May 2013 it was displayed in the exhibition ''Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind'',Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind
/ref> at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

in London.

References

External links

The Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Brno
{{DEFAULTSORT:Venus of Petrkovice Archaeological discoveries in the Czech Republic Archaeological discoveries in Europe European archaeology Gravettian History of Silesia Nude sculptures Ostrava Petrkovice Prehistory of the Czech lands Sculptures of women in the Czech Republic Statues in the Czech Republic

Discovery

Features

Location

See also

References

External links