The Venus of Laussel, or "Femme a la corne" is what scholars call the carved relief of a venus, an object, drawing or sculpture found in many Upper Paleolithic contexts. The stereotypical (but by no means the only) venus figurine consists of a detailed drawing of a woman's overweight body that lacks details for her face. Laussel is a large cave near the town of Laussel, in the municipality of Marquay in the Dordogne Valley of France. One of four carvings found at Laussel, the Venus of Laussel was carved onto a limestone block that had fallen from the wall. There are traces of red ochre on the sculpture, and reports suggest that it was covered in the substance when found.
Laussel Cave was discovered over a hundred years ago, and scientific excavations since that time have not been conducted. The Upper Paleolithic venus was dated by stylistic means as belonging to the Gravettian or Upper Perigordian period, ca. 29,000 to 22,000 years ago.
The 1.5 foot high image is of a woman with large breasts, belly and thighs, explicit genitals and an undefined or eroded head with what appears to be long hair. Her left hand rests on her belly, and her right hand holds what looks to be a large horn core of a bison. The horn core has 13 vertical lines etched onto it: the undefined face appears to be looking at the core.
Other carvings found in the Laussel cave include the "femme a la tete quadrillée", which is a woman with her head covered with a net; the "archer", a young, slim female; and the "Venus dehanchee", and the "personnages opposes", neither of which I could find detailed descriptions.
The Laussel venus is now in the Musee d'Aquitaine in Bordeaux.
Possible Interpretations
The Venus of Laussel and her horn have been interpreted in many different ways since the sculpture's discovery. Scholars typically interpret a venus figurine as a fertility goddess or shaman; but the addition of the bison core, or whatever that object is, has stimulated much discussion.
Calendric / Fertility
The best known interpretation from Upper Paleolithic scholars is that the object the Venus is holding isn't a horn core, but rather an image of the crescent moon, and the 13 stripes cut into the object are an explicit reference to the annual lunar cycle. This, combined with the venus resting her hand on a large belly, is read as a reference to fertility.
The tallies on the crescent are also sometimes interpreted as referring to the number of menstrual cycles in a year of a woman's life.
Cornucopia
A related concept to the fertility is the precursor of the classical concept of cornucopia or Horn of Plenty. This interpretation relies on the identification of the horn as a symbol of food, or abundance, and the tally marks might represent a hunter's score of animals slaughtered.
Cornucopias are related to fertility as well: the idea is that procreation occurs in the head, and the horn represents the fertilizing, um, function of a bull.
Priestess of the Hunt
Following along with that theory, some scholars have argued that the Laussel Venus is actually holding a magical wand to help aid a hunter trap a pursued animal. This version sees the collection of drawings found at Laussel together, as different vignettes of the same story.
Drinking horn
Another idea put about by some scholars interprets the horn as a drinking vessel. This concept argues that the horn is thus evidence for the use of fermented beverages, based on the combination of the horn and the clearly sexual references of the woman's body. This ties in with shamanistic notions of the goddess, in that shamans are thought to have used psychotropic substances to reach into alternative states of consciousness.
Musical instrument
Finally, the horn has been interpreted as a musical instrument, possibly as a wind instrument, a horn indeed, in which the woman would blow into the horn to make a noise. Another interpretation has been as an idiophone, a rasp or scraper instrument. The player would scrape a hard object along the incised lines, rather like a washboard.
The musical instrument idea agrees with all of the above interpretations that the Venus of Laussel represents a magical or shamanistic figure, as the playing of music is also associated with shamans.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to the Upper Paleolithic , and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
da Silva CM. 2010. Neolithic Cosmology: The Equinox and the Spring Full Moon. Journal of Cosmology 9:2207-2010.
Duhard J-P. 1991. The shape of Pleistocene women. Antiquity 65(248):552-561.
Duhard J-P. 1992. Les figures féminines en bas-relief de l'abri Bourdois à Angles-sur-l'Anglin (Vienne). Essai de lecture morphologique. Paléo:161-173.
Huyge D. 1991. The "Venus" of Laussel in the light of ethnomusicology. Archeologie in Vlaanderen 1:11-18.
