Mal'ta Venus

The Venusfigurinen of Malta are numerous Paleolithic representations of the female body from the eponymous finding place in Malta, which is only 80km away from the Siberian Irkutsk. The age of the figurines is estimated at about 20,000 years. The statuettes thus stem from the Gravettian. Delporte named 1979, the number of matched characters (including fragmentary preserved statuettes ) with 29 The figures are between 3.1 cm and 13.6 cm tall. The majority consists of ivory, only two copies are made of reindeer antlers. Several statuettes show women in stylized clothing, quite often the face is shown. Both are otherwise very rare in Paleolithic figurines. It resemble the figurines from Malta to Venusfigurinen of Bouret, another Paleolithic locality near Malta.

Palaeolithic Site Malta

The statuettes were found in a field station in Malta ( Irkutsk Oblast ) in the vicinity of Lake Baikal in Siberia. This excavation site is not to be confused with the Bronze Age locality on the mediator Sea island of Malta ( temple complex Ħaġar Qim in Malta ). The Siberian Malta appears in the literature, especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries, often in the spelling of " Mal'ta " on.

The Paleolithic find spot was discovered in 1928 by Mikhail Gerasimov and consists of several sites a larger settlement. Structures of houses that were built of bones, and a grave of a child with grave goods have made the find spot known internationally as well. The settlement is situated about 85 km north- west of Irkutsk on the left bank of the Angara, which flows from Lake Baikal. The statuettes were among others excavated by Russian archaeologist N. Zamiatmine, GP Sosnovskii and M. Gerasimov.