World's oldest sculpture was porno?

[TWiley]

BERLIN – A 35,000-year-old ivory carving of a busty woman found in a German cave was unveiled Wednesday by archaeologists who believe it is the oldest known sculpture of the human form. The carving found in six fragments in Germany's Hohle Fels cave depicts a woman with a swollen belly, wide-set thighs and large, protruding breasts.

"It's very sexually charged," said University of Tuebingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard, whose team discovered the figure in September.

Carbon dating suggests it was carved at least 35,000 years ago, according to the researchers' findings, which are being published Thursday in the scientific journal Nature.

"It's the oldest known piece of figurative sculpture in the world," said Jill Cook, a curator of Paleolithic and Mesolithic material at the British Museum in London.

Stones in Israel and Africa almost twice as old are believed to have been collected by ancient humans because they resembled people, but they were not carved independently.

Story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090513/ap_on_sc/eu_germany_oldest_sculpture

33,000 years before Jesus the world was inhabited by perverts? I thought the world has been deterioriating.

[Hissyspit]

1. Not really.

At a primal level, humans make art, have made and continue to make art, that exaggerates and emphasizes in depiction what is perceived by them as most important, unless a dominant cultural value overrides it.

There are dozens of examples of these kind of female fertility figures that have been found. It is sexually charged in the sense that child-bearing ability and stored energy in the form of fat and breast milk would have been very important to these nomadic ice-age cave dwellers. You can't really assume it is somehow just masturbatory material. You don't even know the gender of the person who carved it.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. Says the guy with the Ceiling Cat avatar.

Ceiling Cat sees all.

[napoleon_in_rags]

5. I'll wager it was.

It is sexually charged in the sense that child-bearing ability and stored energy in the form of fat and breast milk would have been very important to these nomadic ice-age cave dwellers

Exactly, in those times a large women was an ideal of beauty. That's why Im willing to bet that it was a sexy thing created by men. More reverent than "porn" maybe, but its my bet. Can't know, but its a gut feeling.

[Hissyspit]

13. You're reading it through your modern eyes.

It could have been a sexually charged sacred or magical object possibly used in ritual by a shaken. The word "pornography" in it's present-day usage implies something base or common.

We don't and might never really know for sure, of course.

[napoleon_in_rags]

39. I was thinking about it after I posted that last night.

On one hand, I don't think men have changed over 30,000 years. When I was a teen, I remember sculpting a woman's torso out of my mom's sculpting clay, because I was a horny teenage boy and was thinking about that. Its something I could see happening at any place or time with young men. On the other hand, there are plenty of precedents for figurines of non sexual nature: specifically, I think dolls occur in cultures all over the world. This could just as easily be a girls toy, complete with missing baby figurines. Then there are the shamanistic spiritual purposes which could also exist.

You're right we can't know, but it is fun to speculate though, to seek out our commonality with ancient folks. :)

[H2O Man]

9. To take it a step further,

it was moswt likely representative of the community's view of their relationship with the world around them.

[JVS]

2. German Porn: Objectifying Women for 35,000 Years

[blogslut]

4. Another one to add to the collection!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines

Venus of Hohle Fels
Venus of Galgenberg
Venus of Dolní Věstonice
Venus of Lespugue
Venus of Willendorf
Venus of Mal'ta
Venus of Moravany
Venus of Brassempouy
Venus of Laussel
Venus of Monruz

I assume this one will be named the Venus of Hohle Fels:



Ancient humans sure did love their fertility symbols.

[opihimoimoi]

6. The early Goddess......tis a time "When God was a Woman."...Merlin Stone 1976

[bulloney]

7. Probably sculpted by ancestors of Senator Vitter.

[eShirl]

8. I'm sure John Ashcroft would agree that all carved nudity is porno.

[EOTE]

26. Would somebody please put some drapes on that thing?

Dear god, I can still see her ankle!

[Recursion]

10. My understanding is anthropologists are of two minds on that

Theory A: the early sculptures (and later cave paintings) were made by bored adolescent males who couldn't mate yet, which is why they show unrealistically attractive nude women in the one and hunting scenes in the other -- the same sorts of things bored adolescent males fantasize about today.

Theory B: the figurines (and possibly the cave paintings later) were made by shamans (or shamanesses) as sacred totems. Fertility was very important to keeping ice-age clans alive (in the case of the cave paintings, fat and protein from animals was) so it took on a sacred aspect.

Interesting in either case is the fact that the phallus is almost never represented before the Bronze age. Adolescent males today love drawing phalli (look at the graffiti in your area), and anyone with a sacred interest in fertility would presumably care about them too. There's one painting of a human in Lascaux, and it's ithyphallic, but it's also highly stylized (almost an xkcd-like stick figure) while the animals are stunningly realistic. So my own impression is that there is a whole lot we still don't know about paleolithic sculptures and mesolithic paintings. (And even I am guilty here of a common mistake by talking about the two together more than is probably warranted -- 10,000 years and a population crash separate these venus figurines from cave paintings.)

[TreasonousBastard]

11. I'd go with B. I've seen some very early venus...

figurines with hugely outsized vaginas. I suspect they were awed and mystified by female plumbing, not only in women but in their livestock and any other mammals they came across.

I have no idea why there is little early phallic imagery (although it might have something to do with changing from matriarchal to patriarchal societies) but at some point everyone became obesessed with them. Irish in the days of Queen Mauve had the female figurines, but in St. Patrick's time had the phalli even in their illuminated Bibles. Go figure.

[Mari333]

23. I have seen many Sheila Na Gigs in Europe

and in India, there are whole sculptures and wall motifs of the Vagina, and thats all. it is the sacred 'fount of life ' as a representation.
its no coincidence that the current bible says that womens blood during menstruation is evil. the patriarchs had to usurp the sacredness of the goddess concept to gain power .

[KittyWampus]

17. I am a cultural anthropolgist who focused on Art and never heard Theory A.

[readmoreoften]

42. Yeah. Uh, Theory A is a little ridiculous. /nt

[Recursion]

45. *shrug*

Guthrie looks at both "high" and "low" paleolithic art. It's a really interesting take and I'd hesitate to dismiss his book as ridiculous, though I'm a layman in this field.

[Recursion]

44. Sorry for the delay, had to find the book

Guthrie, The Nature of Paleolithic Art, U. Chicago P. 2006. Really neat book.

[Kalyke]

22. So you're basically saying that male humans haven't evolved.

Heck, us women knew that!

;)

[Mari333]

24. we still live in a patriarchy

der fatherland. unfortunately.

[pnutbutr]

12. fertility

swolen breasts and belly. It's a fing fertility sculpture, not porn. :eyes:

[HopeHoops]

14. Why the shock? A lot of technologies took off because of porno!

:hide:

[Mari333]

15. Read Maritas Gimbutas, and no , it wasnt porn

thats the patriarchal filter over the eyes.
'goddesses and gods of old europe'

an eye opener from an archeo-anthropologist.
The Female as Goddess is found everywhere 40,000 BCE onward . its hard for patriarchal societies to admit it. Joseph Campbell and Gimbutas were great colleagues. The Goddess as primary deity was everywhere in archeology.












http://www.amazon.com/Goddesses-Gods-Old-Europe-Images/dp/0520253981/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1242399237&sr=8-3

[KittyWampus]

16. What a twisted thread title. Female Fertility is porn. And if it was meant as sarcasm-

it still isn't funny or necessary.

[Mari333]

21. The Goddess

was the image found in most archeological sites from 40,000 BCE onwards. she was the primary deity, even more then a fertility symbol, she was the symbol of life itself. it wasnt until the pastoral hordes came marching thru that she started getting usurped by the phallic god imagery. and that took some time.
even the 'blessed mother' is just a worked over version of Ishtar, Isis, Astarte, Tara, and the reason the Catholic Church kept her image around (albeit without much power) was to appease the pagans who wanted their Goddess symbol .
yes, it was not porn. only patriarchs who want to control the image would think that.
:)

[KittyWampus]

25. As an aside, in Alchemical Art fully evolved humanity is depicted as an Androgyne. As for Marian

images derived from Catholicism, I am all for embracing it. It's the Female Principle that the Catholic dogma and patriarchy tries to beat down into submission.

[Mari333]

27. which I really like

hopefully we are on our way to that. it is the yinyan after all :) :)

[Mari333]

34. another point

the whole concept of imagery in any symbol is just that..imagery projected. inner imagery of whomever is making the symbol. Joseph Campbell says the danger is when people 'concretize' the images.
the nurturer within is the imagery of the 'mother' symbol..but thats found in men and women, the nurturer. The idea that the woman is the only nurturer and the man is the forceful warrior is silly. a woman has the warrior within her also. just as a man has a nurturer within.
So the androgyne symbol, without concretizing it, is the most sensible to me.
as I look at young people around me today, I see that happening. I like it.

[rucky]

36. and archaeologists that don't get out much.

[cali]

18. porn as a concept divorced from the divine/spirituality/magic

didn't exist among early or primitive humans.

[BoneDaddy]

19. Sounds like this is the person's projection

It is consistent with many other early human communitites that celbrated the divine Mother.

[underpants]

20. Any new "technology" is rapidly taken advantage of by three industries

Porn
Wrestling
Religion

[JitterbugPerfume]

28. It is always the female figure

that is considered pornographic
That tells us all we need to know about Patriarchy

[Mari333]

29. control.

thats what its about. control. faux control.

[originalpckelly]

30. FUCK YEAH BABY!

:rofl:

[redqueen]

31. How pathetic and ignorant.

So you agree with Rummy that that statue needed draperies... cause it's "dirty" and "pornographic"?

Sick. Fucking sick.

[iamthebandfanman]

32. oh yeah, thats hot. n/t

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Eric J in MN]

35. Doesn't even look like a sculpture of person to me.

Do those arms look human to other people?

[JackRiddler]

37. What an impoverished view you have of people and their art.

How about you go off to your Sunday sermons and leave us perverts to our fate in hell, okay?

[deutsey]

38. Does the female form make you uncomfortable, Mr. Lebowski?

:evilgrin:

[JackRiddler]

47. Heh

[walldude]

40. How is a nude statue of a woman porn?

I find the female form just as beautiful as any work done by a great artist. I guess that makes me one of your "perverts" :eyes: Fuck.. is this country ever going to get over it's insane sexual hangups?

We still live in a nation where a bloody murder is ok to show on TV but not a bare breast. Pathetic.

[aikoaiko]

41. I know porn. That's not porn.

Two bumps and a raggedy hole do not float my boat.

[Evoman]

43. How is this porn? If it doesn't have a money shot, it's not porn.

[Contrary1]

46. It looks like the sculpture of a dog turd to me. n/t