Statuette "Rote von Mauern" - Androgynes Zwittergebilde

Description

Among the most yielding and best-researched places of the Palaeolithic Age in Bavaria are the vineyard caves near Mauern in the Wellheimer Trockental. On 24 August 1948, Lothar Zotz noted in his excavation diary that the campaign had come across a settlement stratum dyed red with minerals outside a cave. From this level came the small limestone statuette, which is dyed red by ochre and, therefore, known as the "Rote von Mauern" (the red statuette from Mauern). It has a peg-shaped upper body and a strongly developed bottom, while head and breasts are missing. The short legs snap off at a right angle. Ca. 28,000 to 20,000 years ago, in Eastern and Central Europe next to small animal figures such figures of women were created in ivory or stone. These women are depicted as curvaceous and in the nude, the sexual characteristics are emphasised, individual traits neglected. Such so-called “Venus figures”, to which belongs the statuette from Mauern, are interpreted as an expression of sexuality and fertility. Of roughly the same age as the "Rote von Mauern" is the world famous "Venus von Willendorf" from Lower Austria. A figurine made of soapstone from Lake Trasimeno in Umbria presents the greatest similarity to the "Rote von Mauern".