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The Moravany Venus

The Moravany venus is 7.6 centimetres tall. The venus was discovered in the area of Moravany nad Váhom, a village near the spa resort Piestany in Slovakia.

My thanks to Ondrej Žaár, an archaeologist from the Slovak Republic, for the following:

It is officially dated 22 800 B.P. and belongs to the shouldered points horizon (Willendorf-Kostenkian or upper gravettian). All of the gravettian sites in the Moravany nad Váhom complex belong to Willendorf-Kostenkian.

Gravettien culture (30-20 000 B.P.) in central Europe is divided into three phases:

Older Pavlovian (30-27 000 B.P.)
Younger (developed) Pavlovian (27-23 000 B.P.)
Willendorf-Kostenkian (23-20 000 b.p.) - the venus from Moravany belongs here (22 800 B.P.)

It was ploughed up in a field sometime in 1938. Later it appeared in Paris. The sculpture was finally returned to Slovakia due to the work of Zotz and Freund, and Dr J Bárta.

Given that the faces of Venus figures are often depicted in a minimalist fashion or obscured in some way, it is possible that the sculpture was created without a head.

The card with the venus states:

Venus von Moravany

Slowakei
Elfenbein
22 000 - 24 000 Jahre
Leihgabe: Slowakische Akademie der Wissenshaften in Nitra

Slovakia
Mammoth Ivory
22 000 - 24 000 years
Loan: Slovak Academy of Sciences in Nitra

Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008

Source: Display at Vienna Natural History Museum.

Although it was on loan from the Slovak Academy of Sciences, it is almost certainly a high quality facsimile, since Ondrej Žaár reliably informs me that the original is kept in the National Bank in Slovak Republic.

In addition, as he says, "Back in the 80's there were a lot of cast copies made for public display and for sale, and they have slightly different colors. It seems a little bit too dark to me with highlighted scraped lines on it, just like one of the cast series."

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This page last modified Wednesday 28 October 2009

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