The Venus of Lespugue is a Venus figurine, a statuette of a female figure of the Gravettian, dated to between 26,000 and 24,000 years ago.

Quick Facts Created, Discovered ...
Venus of Lespugue
Thumb
Venus of Lespugue, Musée de l'Homme, Paris
Created26,000-24,000 BP
DiscoveredLespugue (Haute-Garonne), France
Thumb
Lespugue
Lespugue
Close

Discovery

It was discovered in 1922 in the Rideaux cave of Lespugue (Haute-Garonne) in the foothills of the Pyrenees by René de Saint-Périer (1877-1950).

Approximately 6 inches (150 mm) tall, it is carved from tusk ivory, and was damaged during excavation.

Features

Of all the steatopygous Venus figurines discovered from the upper Paleolithic, the Venus of Lespugue, if the reconstruction is sound, appears to display the most exaggerated female secondary sexual characteristics, especially the extremely large, pendulous breasts.

According to textile expert Elizabeth Wayland Barber,[1] the statue displays the earliest representation found of spun thread, as the carving shows a skirt hanging from below the hips, made of twisted fibers, frayed at the end.

Location

The Venus of Lespugue resides in France, at the Musée de l'Homme.

See also

Notes

Wikiwand in your browser!

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.

Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.