The Hermaphrodite Venus from Balzi Rossi
The Hermaphrodite, so named by Piette, probably has the same origin as the Losange Venus and the Polichinelle Venus and has also been acquired and published by Piette (MAN, no 49.280). The statuette, of translucent green soapstone, is badly damaged: the head is broken off, a flake removed from the back of the thighs and lower buttocks, and it has also been broken into three pieces that were glued together. As it stands, the figure is 52 mm high, 17 mm wide and 11 mm thick, and the maximum dimensions are at the pelvis.
The surface is polished and worn, with remains of concretions in the concave parts. The neck, what remains of it, is shown clearly. The torso is very flat, with normal breasts hanging low. The belly is large, but not commensurate with that of the Losange for example. Under the stomach are three difficult to interpret features: laterally, two elongated subtriangular masses we have considered the representation of hands on the belly, which is possible but not obvious, since they might also be inguinal fat folds, recalling those which may be observed in the Bushman women.
Figure known as the Hermaphrodite, made of soapstone
Dimensions: height 51.5 mm, width 17.5 mm, thickness. 11.5 mm.
Photo: http://www.nihilum.republika.pl/
For the central feature, it is held to be an erect penis, but this is unconvincing. It takes a lot of imagination to distinguish the penis, which remains the essential element of the phallic representation; as for the roughly circular mass that is found below it, it could be a testicular pouch.
For the rest, hips, buttocks and thighs are of normal proportions, with no trace of extra fat deposits. In what remains of the dorsal side, since there is a very moderate projection of the buttocks, there is no trace of steatopygia. The back of the statue, despite its poor condition, is also very interesting. It is well shaped, with a spinal depression around the shoulder blades, and an indication of the curvature of the small of the back, emphasised by a cluster of parallel incisions; the buttocks, as we have said, are normal, with an incomplete medial hole for the anus. As for the legs, the lower limbs are broken off at the knees.
It might be thought that the incisions marking the curvature of the small of the back represented a belt, reminiscent of the Russian Kostenki statuettes, and one can observe that these incisions extend on either side of the figure and join at the front, at the lateral features mentioned above. It is therefore possible to suppose that the whole thing, the back belt and the frontal features, represent an ornament of some kind - as well as possibly male organs.
The fact is that in the present state of our knowledge, it would be unwise to affirm too authoritatively one or other of these interpretations.
Text above translated and adapted fromDelporte (1993)
Figure known as the Hermaphrodite, made of soapstone. Rear view.
Photo: Cohen (2003)
Figure known as the Hermaphrodite.
Photo: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/
Catalog: MAN49280
Details of incisions which are similar in the Hermaphrodite and the Ivory figurine in red ochre.
(left) lower part of the 'Hermaphrodite' showing the area of vertical incisions (coll. MAN).
(right) the hair of the 'Ivory figurine in red ochre' (coll . Bolduc).
White et Bisson (1998) write: The most enigmatic of the pieces, the 'Hermaphrodite', which, although endowed with breasts, and clearly pregnant, is depicted with a bulge at the crotch marked by vertical incisions and a trough that runs from the top of the bulge to the base of the protruding abdomen. This bulge was first interpreted as an erect phallus and testicles on a female torso, hence its name.
RecentlyDuhard (1993) argued that these attributes show a birth, the bulge being the head of a baby emerging and the lines indicating the hair. In support of this interpretation, it should be noted that the technique to represent the hair is identical to that used on the 'Ivory figurine in red ochre'.
Photo: R. White
Source:White et Bisson (1998)
References
- Bisson M, Bolduc P., 1994: "Previously Undescribed Figurines From the GrimaldiCaves."Current Anthropology, 35(4) (Aug.-Oct. 1994) : 458-468.
- Cohen C., 2003:La femme des origines. Images de la femme dans la préhistoire occidentale,, Paris, Belin-Herscher, 2003, 191 pages.
- Delporte H., 1993: L’image de la femme dans l’art préhistorique, Éd. Picard (1993)
- Duhard J., 1993: Réalisme de l'image féminine paléolithique,Cahiers du Quaternaire, 19,Paris, éd. du CNRS.
- Mussi M. et al., 2010: "Les « vénus » du Gravettien et de l’Épigravettien italien, témoignages de rapports sur longues distancesau travers de l’Europe et de l’Eurasie"IFRAO Congress, IFRAO Congress, September 2010 – Symposium: Pleistocene art in Europe (Pre-Acts)
- White, R., Bisson M., 1998: Imagerie féminine du Paléolithique : l'apport des nouvelles statuettes de Grimaldi,Galliapréhistoire. Tome 40, 1998. pp. 95-132.
Recent additions, changes and updates to Don's Maps This page last updated: Friday, 04th Oct 2019 13:39If you have any information which would be useful for Don's Maps, or if you have questions or comments, please contact Don Hitchcock atdon@donsmaps.com
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My background
Some people have expressed interest in knowing a little bit about me. For those people, here is a potted biography:
I live in New South Wales, Australia, and I am a retired high school mathematics/science teacher.
The Donsmaps site is totally independent of any other influence. I work on it for my own pleasure, and finance it myself. I started before there was an internet, when I thought I could do a better job of the small map on the end papers of Jean Auel's wonderful book, Valley of the Horses, by adding detail and contour lines, and making a larger version. I have always loved maps since I was a young boy.
I had just bought a black and white '
fat Mac' with a whopping 512 kB of memory (!), and no hard disk. With a program called '
Super Paint' and a lot of double work (hand tracing first the maps of Europe from atlases, then scanning the images on the tracing paper, then merging the scanned images together, then tracing these digital scans on the computer screen), I made my own black and white map.
Then the internet came along, the terms of my internet access gave me space for a small website, and Don's Maps started. I got much better computers and software over the years, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for example, and my maps became colourised and had more detail. I did a lot of maps of the
travels of Ayla from Jean Auel's books, and I gradually included other pages with more and more photos available from the web, and scanned from books or from scientific papers, since I was not happy with the quality generally available. I became very interested in the Venus figurines, and set out to make a
complete record of the ice age ones. Along the way I got interested in archaeology for its own sake.
In 2008 my wife and I went to Europe, and when we arrived in Frankfurt at sunrise after the 24 hour plane trip from Sydney, while my wife left on her own tour with her sister, they visited relatives in Germany and Austria, I went off by myself on the train to Paris. Later that afternoon I took a train to Brive-la-Gaillarde, found a hotel and caught up on lost sleep. The next morning I hired a car, and over the next four weeks visited and photographed many of the original archaeological sites in the south of France, as well as many archaeological museums. It was a wonderful experience.My wife and I met up again later in the Black Forest, and
cycled down the Danube from its source to Budapest, camping most of the way, a wonderful trip, collecting many photos, including a visit to
Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic, as well as visiting the Vienna natural history museum. Jean Auel fans will realise the significance of that trip!
Luckily I speak French, the trips to France would have been difficult or impossible otherwise. No one outside large cities speaks English (or they refuse to). I was travelling independently, not as part of a tour group. I never knew where I was going to be the next night, and I camped nearly everywhere, except for large cities. I am a very experienced bushwalker (hiker) and have the required equipment -
a one-man ultra lightweight tent, sleeping bag, stove, raincoat, and so on, all of which I make myself for use here when I go bushwalking, especially down the beautiful gorges east of Armidale, though for Europe I use a commercial two person lightweight tent, since weight is not so much of a problem when cycling or using a car, and in any case my wife was with me when cycling, once along the Donau from its source to Budapest in 2008, and again from Amsterdam to Copenhagen and then up the Rhine from Köln to the Black Forest in 2014, both of which were memorable and wonderful trips.
In 2012 we went to Canada for a wedding and to visit old friends, and I took the opportunity to visit the wonderful Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, where I took many photographs of the items on exhibit, particularly of the superb display of artefacts of the
First Nations of the Pacific Northwest.
In 2014 my wife and I did another European cycling tour, from
Amsterdam to Copenhagen, then from Cologne up the Rhine to the Black Forest, camping most of the way in each case, and taking many useful photos in museums along the way, including the museums at Leiden, Netherlands, and
Roskilde in Denmark, and the National Museum in Copenhagen. Again, I later hired a car and did more photography and visited many more sites in France.
In 2015 I made a lone visit to all the major museums in western Europe by public transport, mostly by train, and that went very well. I had learned a lot of German while travelling with my wife, who is a fluent speaker of the language, and of all the European countries, Germany is my favourite. I feel comfortable there. I love the people, the food, and the beer. Germans are gemütlich, I have many friends there now.
I repeated the visit to western Europe in 2018, to fill in some gaps of museums I had not visited the first time, because they were either closed for renovation the first time (such as the Musée de l'Homme in Paris) or because I ran out of time, or because I wanted to fill in some gaps from major museums such as the British Museum, the Berlin Museum, München, the Louvre, the Petrie and Natural History Museums in London, the Vienna Natural History Museum, the important museum in Brno, and museums in northern Germany. It takes at least two visits, preferably three, to thoroughly explore the items on display in a major museum.
I spend a lot of time on the site, typically at least a few hours a day, often more. I do a lot of translation of original papers not available in English, a time consuming but I believe a valuable task. People and fate have been very generous to me, and it is good to give back a very small part of what I have been given. With the help of online translation apps and use of online dictionaries there are few languages I cannot translate, though I find Czech a challenge!
Life has been kind to me, I want for nothing, and am in good health. Not many in the world are as lucky as I am, and I am grateful for my good fortune.
My best wishes to all who read and enjoy the pages of my site.
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
And may rain on a tin roof lull you to sleep at night.
Webmaster: Don HitchcockEmail:don@donsmaps.com
Website last updated Monday 10 March 2025
