The Venus of Willendorf was carved from oolitic limestone, and was covered with a thick layer of red ochre when found. The figurine was unearthed during the Wachau railway construction in 1908.
Photo: Vienna Natural History Museum Postcard
The Venus of Willendorf was carved from oolitic limestone, and was covered with a thick layer of red ochre when found. The figurine was unearthed during the Wachau railway construction
in 1908.
Photo: Vienna Natural History Museum Postcard
I spent some time in the Vienna Natural History Museum one day in September 2008. This is the best image of the Venus of Willindorf from that session.
Photo: Don Hitchcock, 2008
Source: Original in the Vienna Natural History Museum
Willendorf on the Donau, where the Venus of Willendorf was discovered, viewed from a ship on the Donau.
Photo: Don Hitchcock
The Vienna Natural History Museum, in which the Venus of Willendorf is on display.
Photo: Don Hitchcock, 2008
Although available light does not give good resolution, it shows sculptural forms clearly.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008, Canon, available light
Source: Original in the Vienna Natural History Museum
Venus of Willendorf
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008, Canon
Source: Original in the Vienna Natural History Museum
Venus of Willendorf
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008, Canon
Source: Original in the Vienna Natural History Museum
Venus of Willendorf
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008, Pentax
Source: Original in the Vienna Natural History Museum
Venus of Willendorf posters. When I arrived in Viena in September 2008, there were posters advertising the Venus of Willendorf everywhere.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008, Canon
Venus of Willendorf II
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008, Pentax
Source: Original in the Vienna Natural History Museum
Venus of Willendorf II
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008, Canon
Source: Original in the Vienna Natural History Museum
Venus of Willendorf II reconstruction.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008, Canon
Source: Vienna Natural History Museum
Venus of Willendorf III
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008, Pentax
Source: Original in the Vienna Natural History Museum
Venus of Willendorf III
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008, Canon
Source: Original in the Vienna Natural History Museum
Venus statue at the site.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Soil Profile at the discovery site.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Hugo Obermaier, Josef Szombathy, and Josef Bayer at the centre of the excavations where the Venus of Willendorf was found.
Wilendorf had already been known as a Palaeolithic site for over 20 years when, in 1908, systematic excavations by Szombathy, Bayer and Obermaier began.
By the 1870s at the latest, the owner of the Brunner brickyard at Willendorf had found flint tools there. Leopold Koch and Ferdinand Brun learned of these finds in late 1883. Brun had noticed bones at the surface of the Brunner brickyard on several occasions. He carried out initial archaeological investigations in 1884. At the end of the 1880s, bones were discovered during digging for a new clay pit on the Ebner property. Ludwig Hans Fischer carried out excavations of this site in 1890. Remains of human skeletons were reported to have been discovered while digging for clay between 1904 and 1905.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf. © NHM Wien
Text: Display at Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
Map of the Willendorf digs I, II and III by Bayer on 19th May 1908.
As early as 1904, Szombathy made a drawing of the Grossensteiner brickyard and noted that the Wachaubahn railway would pass just above or below it. Excavation for the railway began in January of 1908. On January 18, Josef Bayer published and appeal to the population of the Wachau to be watchful for any finds made in the loess. He also informed Szombathy that the excavation work had already touched on levels of finds from the Palaeolithic period. Szombathy then charged Hugo Obermaier and Josef Bayer with observing the excavation work. On May 11 the two of them followed the railway bed from Krems to Willendorf and noted three additional archaeological sites besides the former brickyard. They purchased some of the finds and made sketches of the sites. In early June, an engineer of the imperial railway construction authority named Kann reported finds from the railway bed to the central commission in Vienna. Szombathy carried out negotiations with Kann and ALbus, the subcontractor from Groisbach who was supplying tools and labour. On July 22 he summoned Bayer and Obermaier to Willendorf on July 29.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf. © NHM Wien
Text: Display at Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
Josef Bayer on the 7th August 1908 on the level where the Venus of Willendorf was discovered.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf. © NHM Wien
The site of the dig at Willendorf.
On the morning of August 7, Josef Szombathy arrived in Willendorf on a routine visit. He and Josef Bayer were present when a worker, Johann Veran, discovered the Venus of Willendorf. Hugo Obermaier learned of the find only later, in the course of the day. In 1925 Hugo Obermaier wrote to his friend Menghin, head of the Institute of Prehistory and Early History at Vienna University, that no one had been present when the statue had actually been found. He and Bayer had been occupied with excavating the levels. Szombathy alone had gone from one worker to another and noticed the object lying among the finds made by Veran.
Obermaier's letter became a source of later speculation. Some suspected that none of the three researchers had actually been at the excavation site when the Venus had been found. This may be ruled out, however, since Obermaier himself also wrote that he and Bayer had been working above and Szombathy had been observing their work.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf. © NHM Wien
Text: Display at Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
The site of the dig at Willendorf.
The people in the photo are standing at the place where the Venus figures were found. The person in the foreground is standing at the site where the Venus I was found, and the person in the background is standing at the site where the Venus II was found.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf. © NHM Wien
Text: My translation of the caption on the photograph.
Willendorf in 1908 after the completion of the railroad.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf. © NHM Wien
Josef Bayer continued excavations in Willendorf in 1909. After these excavation works he renamed the levels found in 1908 (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6a, 6b, 6 and 7) to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, recognising that layers 6a and 6b were refuse layers from different occupations of the site. Further excavations at Willendorf were hindered by the outbreak of the First World War. Bayer was informed in 1926 of substantial damage to the soil strata. Upon initial investigation of unauthorised digging, Bayer discovered an ivory figure about 22 cm tall - Venus II of Willendorf, resting on the lower jawbone of a mammoth. It had not been completed and the head had been truncated. Bayer carried out intensive research at the site in the following years. In addition to drawing a plan of the most significant finds, he packed them individually, so that even today we are able to faithfully reconstrct the original position of each. This is an indication of the high scholarly standards Bayer followed in his archaeological research.
The nine levels of finds encompass a period spanning more than 20 000 years, from around 20 000 BP to 40 000 BP
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf. © NHM Wien
Text: Display at Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
Text: Display at Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
On a cold, wet and windy Monday afternoon in September 2008, my wife and I arrived on our bicycles, looking like drowned rats, at a Pensione in Willendorf. We were on a trip from the source of the Danube in the Black Forest of Germany, cycling along the banks of the Danube to Budapest in Hungary. After warming up with a hot shower, I looked out the window and saw this sign, and my heart sank - the museum is only open for a few hours each weekend.
However, we talked to our hosts, and they arranged for the curator of the museum to open it especially for us, for which we were very grateful.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
The Museum is fairly new, and beautifully organised, with excellent displays.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
This display has been set up to recreate the hearth and materials near where the Venus was discovered.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
These are some of the huge number of flint tools found at the site.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
Deer antler modified for human use, and the jaw of a wolf.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
Mammoth tusk.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
Reindeer antler
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
Dentalium shells used as jewellery
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
Bone and a Dentalium shell used as jewellery
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf. Photographer A Schumacher, © NHM Wien
Individual gastropod shells found at the site.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf. © NHM Wien
Bear Skull
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
Mammoth molar.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
Mammoth femur.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
A model dressed in the clothes of the time, carrying a spear thrower and a spear.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
Hunting the hairy mammoth by driving it into marshland using men and fire.
Research by anthropologists has determined that adult males at the time were from 160 to 190 cm tall, and females between 150 and 175 cm tall. People wore jewellery made of mussel and snail shells or pendants carved from ivory, antlers or stone.
There were permanent settlements as well as hunting camps. Hunting camps were preferably located in areas favourable for finding a certain kind of animal. There the hunt was slaughtered and the unusable parts left behind. Bones from meat-rich parts of the animal, or which could be used for fashioning tools were more likely to be found at the main camp. Due to the wide variety of tasks carried out at the main camp, one would expect to find a greater variety of tools there. For these reasons, a main camp for ice age man is believed to have existed at level 9 of Willendorf II.
The temperature during the glacial periods was an average of about 3° to 6°C colder than today. With little precipitation in winter, only a thin layer of snow covered the ground, hence there was an adequate supply of nourishment even for large herbivores such as the mammoth. Yet the sequence of layers found at Willendorf spans a period of 20 000 years, and accordingly contains evidence for widely varying climatic stages. Layers 1 to 4, assigned to the period of the Aurignacian culture, consist of deposits which formed 42 000 to 31 000 years ago, at a time when the climate was more moderate than when level 5 was formed.
Following a period of extreme cold, a period characterised by wind deposits of loess began about 26 000 years ago, when culture level 6 was formed. This period lasted until approximately 24 000 years ago, until the time of the culture layer 9, the 'Venus layer'. Tiny snails, good indicators of climatic and environmental conditions in the ice age, are found in the loess in the upper levels at Willendorf and denote a dry, cold climate. The environment consisted of an open plain with a few bushes and trees. Nussberg, a hill to the west belonging to the Jauerling massif, while providing the settlement with some shelter from westerly winds, was probably bare.
Among the finds in layers 8 and 9 at Willendorf are the remains of animal bones, including foxes, arctic foxes, rabbits, wolverines, bears, cave lions, elk, reindeer, mountain goats, horses, mammoths and golden eagles. Particularly worthy of note is the large number of arctic foxes and foxes at level 9. Large numbers of small animals among the spoils found at a site are seen as evidence of a more sedentary lifestyle, i.e. animals found in the vicinity provided a sufficient supply of food. The particular species of animals hunted at Willendorf suggest that the site was used in the cold season.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2008
Source: Venusium, the museum at Willendorf © NHM Wien
Text: Display at Venusium, the museum at Willendorf.
The Venus of Willendorf is one of numerous similarly shaped, uniquely feminine, statuettes dating to the Upper Paleolithic Period (circa 20 000 to 30 000 BC)
This faceless work of art, with its pendulous breasts, fleshy hips, and protruding buttocks, has been considered by some to be a true to life depiction of obesity. Are we to believe that obesity plagued prehistoric women? Although we cannot discount the existence of a singular case of obesity due to Cushing's disease, hypothyroidism, or pituitary dysfunction, several lines of reasoning suggest that obesity must have been exceedingly rare, if it existed at all, during prehistoric times.
Excessive dietary fat and calories, sedentariness, and aging (particularly after menopause) are commonly associated with weight gain and obesity. These factors, in all probability, did not have a major role in the lives of prehistoric women. First, the people of that era lived as hunter gatherers. Obtaining food supplies required daylight, accommodating weather, time, and luck.
Provisions were probably scarce. In addition, primarily because of the leanness of wild animals, our prehistoric ancestors consumed a diet low in fat, approximately 20% of total calories. Therefore, consumption of an overabundance of calories by those women is difficult to imagine. In fact, the studies of paleonutritionists support the contention that undernutrition was a pervasive health problem during prehistoric times.
Second, the nomadic hunter gatherer lifestyle was not sedentary. Indeed, some archeologic data suggest that prehistoric people engaged in perennial treks from mountainous to coastal regions to take advantage of seasonally abundant food sources. Third, the life expectancy of prehistoric women was short. Studies of skeletal remains indicate that most people of that time did not live beyond their mid 30s. Accordingly, age and menopause related increases in body weight would not have manifested themselves in most cases. Collectively, therefore, the lifestyle of Paleolithic women seems unlikely to have fostered the development of obesity.
What then remains as an alternative interpretation of the Venus of Willendorf? Some may argue that because obesity was rare and may have conferred a survival benefit during times of food shortage (much like non insulin dependent diabetes mellitus and the thrifty genotype), it was desirable and worthy of ritualization in the form of statuettes. At first glance, this is a reasonable hypothesis; yet when one considers that no portly male figurines have been discovered, this theory falls into disfavor.
In addition to a short life expectancy, prehistoric women seemed to have suffered an increased risk of death during their 20s. This finding may reflect mortality associated with pregnancy and childbirth. It takes little imagination to see the similarities (albeit exaggerated) between the Venus and a pregnant woman. Although admittedly speculation, the Venus of Willendorf may have been used as a talisman in a precarious world of heightened obstetric related mortality. Similarly, some have proposed that this figurine was the object of a cult: a fertility goddess used to conjure deities and obtain from them fertility for the species.
Obviously, we will never know exactly what inspired the creation of the Venus of Willendorf , nor will we know its true meaning. Nonetheless, this ancient work of art serves as a valuable reminder that obesity is a disease unique to the modern world and one in which environmental factors, such as diet and exercise, assume critical etiologic roles.