Unknown figurine

[trehinp]

Dear all,

My friend Thierry Koltes, owner of the "Prehistoforum" in French, asked a question there about a figurine, most likely prehistoric, but for which no other information than a picture is available.

[Click here for Figurine picture]

Would any one know anything about that figurine ?

Paul

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Dear all,

My friend Thierry Koltes, owner of the "Prehistoforum" in French, asked a question there about a figurine, most likely prehistoric, but for which no other information than a picture is available.

[Click here for Figurine picture]

Would any one know anything about that figurine ?

Paul

Paul

Well, it is obviously a cast. But a cast of what? Where does the picture come from?

To answer your question, it does not ring a bell, except, perhaps, for the fact that it looks a bit too good to be real. A curious amalgam of various "venuses" with a strong "penchant" for the Willendorf approach to the representation of a few anatomical elements.

Jacques

Jacques

[thuur khan]

Hi everybody !

The picture was sent from Québec with this mail (in French) :

"I have lately received a copy of a prehistoric venus as a present but I don't succeed in knowing its origin. You could perhaps help me. "  The mail was signed (full name) and the e-adresse wasn't hidden.

Is it a joke ?

tk

[thuur khan]

the figurine was bought near Tautavel (France) and sent to my penfriend who is  teaching History in Quebec.

[thuur khan]

Sorry ! The figurine wasn't bought near Tautavel but in Dordogne, in a shop near the castel of Castelneau (about 20 US dollars). My penfriend will join the artist who made the cast. Soon the end of this story.

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Sorry ! The figurine wasn't bought near Tautavel but in Dordogne, in a shop near the castel of Castelneau (about 20 US dollars). My penfriend will join the artist who made the cast. Soon the end of this story.

Information I have received from a colleague who knows the Palaeolithic figurines much better than I do, confirms my initial statement regarding the curious/anomalous nature of this “20 US dollars” cast you presented us with. More precisely, the “original” object that must have been used to come up with the latter, is not part of the known and slowly growing series of Eurasian UP female figurines. Furthermore, the curious “amalgam” of traits or attributes I briefly alluded to in my earlier post suggests, rather strongly, that the “original” is likely to have been created by a modern, overenthusiastic palaeophilic artist.

Unless… !

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[thuur khan]

thank you very much

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

thank you very much

Apologies for being so late in catching up with this story

Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to put this story to rest. Here is what I accidentally picked up a while ago on the "unknown figurine" discussed in this "topic":

VÉNUS D’AIX
DESCRIPTION D'UNE STATUETTE PALÉOLITHIQUE DÉCOUVERTE EN PROVENCE

mercredi 20 septembre 2006 :

des examens de surface effectués par le C.N. R.S. sur la statuette indiquent l'utilisation d'un instrument métallique.

Son ancienneté ne saurait donc dépasser deux siècles.

The whole story can be found by clicking HERE. To sum up, the figurine is -- as I suspected all along-- a fake. End of story.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[Daryl Habel]

The whole story can be found by clicking HERE. To sum up, the figurine is -- as I suspected all along-- a fake. End of story.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

Jacques,

I remember when this Venus figurine was first mentioned here, and I agree it looks suspect, but, for some reason, I can't relate the webpage you recommend as the "whole story" to an explanation that the figurine is a fake.  It could be I don't scan French language very well, but I didn't notice anything on the webpage that resembled this "unknown figurine".

Dar

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

The whole story can be found by clicking HERE. To sum up, the figurine is -- as I suspected all along-- a fake. End of story.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

Jacques,

I remember when this Venus figurine was first mentioned here, and I agree it looks suspect, but, for some reason, I can't relate the webpage you recommend as the "whole story" to an explanation that the figurine is a fake.  It could be I don't scan French language very well, but I didn't notice anything on the webpage that resembled this "unknown figurine".

Dar

Dar,

You are right. I must have been very tired when I wrote my last post. I mixed up my figurines. The web page I came up with refers to another pseudo-palaeolitic figurine that I had seen earlier. Apologies for  that.

This said, I still think that, in both cases, we are presented with fakes.

Jacques

[Daryl Habel]

Dear Jacques,

You are saying that you think the "VÉNUS D’AIX" is fake, also?  I see it 'appeared' about 1990 without stratographic context, but my French isn't good enough to pick out any sentence referring to it as a fake.  I'd never seen the "Venus d'Aix" before, but I'm familiar with Galgenberg and the others (which are not considered fakes).  I found this webpage a couple of weeks ago, and used it as a web source (in a  forum post to Kris Hirst at archaeology.about.com) that not all Venus figurines were made from organic materials - that some were carved from soft stone such as steatite, etc.

I suppose I should amend my post to Kris, and mention the "Venus d'Aix" featured on this webpage is (might be?) fake.  Can you help me along in explaining this to Kris?

Best regards,
Dar

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Dear Jacques,

You are saying that you think the "VÉNUS D’AIX" is fake, also?  I see it 'appeared' about 1990 without stratographic context, but my French isn't good enough to pick out any sentence referring to it as a fake.  I'd never seen the "Venus d'Aix" before, but I'm familiar with Galgenberg and the others (which are not considered fakes).  I found this webpage a couple of weeks ago, and used it as a web source (in a  forum post to Kris Hirst at archaeology.about.com) that not all Venus figurines were made from organic materials - that some were carved from soft stone such as steatite, etc.

I suppose I should amend my post to Kris, and mention the "Venus d'Aix" featured on this webpage is (might be?) fake.  Can you help me along in explaining this to Kris?

Best regards,
Dar

Dear Dar,

Sorry again (to you and all) for mixing up my figurines and creating all this confusion. The first one, brought up by Paul Tréhin a while ago -- HERE -- is clearly a poor quality cast of what is likely to be a fake (click HERE for discussion).

As for the “Vénus d’Aix” which has been presented HERE, not only does it appear to be stylistically out-of-place in Provence, but, according to the most recent statement presented by the web site in question ...

mercredi 20 septembre 2006 :

des examens de surface effectués par le C.N. R.S. sur la statuette indiquent l'utilisation d'un instrument métallique.

Son ancienneté ne saurait donc dépasser deux siècles.

… the object is likely to have been fashioned with metal tools!

You are certainly welcome to pass on this bit of info to Kris

Best regards,

Jacques

[Daryl Habel]

As for the “Vénus d’Aix” which has been presented HERE, not only does it appear to be stylistically out-of-place in Provence, but, according to the most recent statement presented by the web site in question ...

mercredi 20 septembre 2006 :

des examens de surface effectués par le C.N. R.S. sur la statuette indiquent l'utilisation d'un instrument métallique.

Son ancienneté ne saurait donc dépasser deux siècles.

… the object is likely to have been fashioned with metal tools!

You are certainly welcome to pass on this bit of info to Kris

Best regards,

Jacques

Thanks Jacques,

I see this quoted passage is displayed prominently near the upper part of the webpage.  I don't know how I missed it, but then it's true that I don't "scan" the French language very well.  Translation into English for me usually is a tedious procedure involving what little French I know, some help with Babel-fish, and poor memory of H.S. Latin.  In any case, I passed the info along to Kris today, so she won't use the "Venus d'Aix" as an example in the future.

Dar

[lagarvelho]

Dar:

I think in this case the relevant phrase really doesn't need much translating(even if you hardly know any French at all, ias in my case).  The relevant phrase is, of course, "instrument metallique", which pretty much says it all, even if you don't really read French(I tend to do better with Spanish, which I was able to more or less teach myself with the help of signs all over the place in post offices, which I would read while waiting in long lines).
Anne G

[Daryl Habel]

Dar:

I think in this case the relevant phrase really doesn't need much translating(even if you hardly know any French at all, ias in my case).  The relevant phrase is, of course, "instrument metallique", which pretty much says it all, even if you don't really read French(I tend to do better with Spanish, which I was able to more or less teach myself with the help of signs all over the place in post offices, which I would read while waiting in long lines).
Anne G

Yes, you're right.  If I had seen only the one sentence, there would have been no problem.  I would have gathered some inclination that the examination showed utilization of  a metallic instrument.  The problem was that this sentence was "headlined" at the beginning of the webpage, and during my "scan" of the page I overlooked the headline and its significance.  Simply put, I just "missed it".

Dar