Venus of Brassempouy
The only 3,65 cm high head of the Venus of Brassempouy (French and La « Lady with the capuche ") is a fragment of an ivory statuette from the Upper Paleolithic. It was in the cave " Grotte du Pape " in Brassempouy in 1894 along with 8 other statuettes found in France. This is the previously oldest known precisely executed representation of a human face and is from the Gravettian ( putative Age: 21000-26000 years that estimates differ ). For other figures from this period, which are also referred to as Venus, you will not find such detailed elaboration of facial features.
Fund history
Brassempouy located in the Landes department in southwestern France. The " Grotte du Pape " there was discovered in 1880 during road construction. It consists of two chambers. The left one is called " the Puits Galérie " " Grande Galérie " of rights.
The Comte de Poudenx in whose possession were the cave, commissioned and funded in 1880, the first excavation that was carried out by PE Dubalen. 1881 visited Édouard Piette ( 1827-1906 ) for the first time to the site. In the same year PE Dubalen published the findings of the first excavation, mainly magdalénienzeitliche objects had produced from the upper layers. 1891 and 1892 investigations by Joseph de la porterie and AL Dufour were resumed.
1892 Édouard Piette mediated the references upon request at the " Association française pour l' avancement des sciences " ( AFAS ), which wanted to conduct a field trip there on September 19, 1892. On September 15, 1892 began working to excavate the find site to prepare it for the excursion. They dug for two days without supervision. The objects discovered here have been collected to show it later to the participants of the excursion. On the day of the excursion, the 40 participants each chose a place from inside and outside the cave and began to dig there, in the conviction that he be allowed to keep everything they could find. Three ivory fragments were found: " l' Ebauche ", " le fragment" and " le bouchon à outre ". Later, the fragment called " la Poire " became known, the find circumstances are not clearly understood. The stratigraphy and exact localities are not known.
Between 1894 and 1897 professional excavations by Édouard Piette and Joseph de la porterie were performed. They examined both chambers of the cave and dug up there. In 1894, the " Lady with the capuche " discovered in a layer that is now attributed to the Gravettian. The first of Piette hypothetically established chronology of the layers was later revised by Henri Breuil. Henri Delporte verified the information by Piette and determined the stratigraphy new in the cave in the years 1981-2000. Since then credited to the Figurette the Gravettian and thus an age of more than 21,000 years.
The lost piece was from March 2010 to visit in its own temporary exhibition at the Museum of Brassempouy together with other prominent representatives of their species, such as the Venus of Willendorf, the Venus of Malta and the Venus of Grimaldi. For reasons of conservation, the fragment is normally kept in the depot at the Museum of Antiquities National in Saint -Germain -en- Laye.
Others
The Venus of Brassempouy in 1976 was selected for the design of a two- franc stamp, as well as the motif of a 15 franc trademark of Mali used.
Reception
- P. Perrève: La dame à la capuche. Historical novel. Ed. Olivier Orban, Paris 1984. ISBN 2-85565-244-8