casandra on May 15 2009, 10:21 PM said:

What roman or greek? They are stone-age relics...much older. And the adipose that's what I meant with beauty ideal. To say it plain, in more than 99% of the human history "fat" women where the ideal. Fat = more fertile. Look at the Roman (real Roman) sculptures with for our time "chunky" women (Aphrodite, Venus de Milo), all the "Rubens" women on the old oil paintings, or Marilyn Monroe. Not as fat as the stone-age Venuses, but more than today's ideal.

hobglobin on May 15 2009, 04:34 PM said:

I meant the replacing of the head...I think it's roman sculpture..they make them headless so one can put whatever head they want on it...like you can put your bust on wolverine's body.........as an aside, I think that one of oldest theories about these venuses was considered racist or racialistic bec they were thought to depict the bodies of african women...and you're right, now, it's a sin to have any extra ounce of fat at all...but like I said, they're not actually fat but probably just pregnant....

I am sorry if it offends anyone but when I saw it the first time then this is what came to my mind . . .





.. . may be because we all have something or the other in mind. . some are preoccupied with 'venuses' and others with 'food'. If it was me who had found this thing the first . . . .

..I think you're more obsessed with chickens than I am....the midline grooves are all missing- top, bottom and lower back....and these venuses, the oldest so far is this one from Hohle Fels that you posted, don't only signify stone-age men's obsession with sex (so what else is new) but perhaps also the jump from abstract art (African) to representational art including all of it's implications- the evolution of language, cognition, human behavior etc. .....and if it were you who found this thing first...what? Btw, were there already prehistoric chickens looking like our dressed chickens at that time?

casandra on May 17 2009, 07:31 AM said:

it's how we see and interpret depending on what is in the mind. Like I said, if it were me who had found it first, I would have interpreted that back in those time also they had chickens and turkeys like we have now and they were conscious about presentation of it on the table. About the midline grooves - the one who made it must have exaggerated the dimensions of the chicken/turkey (just like now it is claimed that the sensual features of venuses were highlighted)

Nabi on May 17 2009, 12:13 AM said:

or the depictions were too darn anatomically realistic....one of the earliest theories attribute the exagerrated features of these figurines to steatopygia, an unusual affliction common in african women and was quite well-known already at that time due to the fame of the Hottentot Venus ....

Luckily at that time chickens were not known in that part (middle-Europe) of the world (and in a plucked, disembowelled, ready to sell manner anyway not). Otherwise perhaps it could be interpreted as a depiction of the invention of sodomy.

hobglobin on May 17 2009, 05:02 PM said:

what?? are you advancing your own crazy theory now? there was one controversial albeit innovative which was proposed before- that the production of these venuses is just art for art's sake- no purpose, nor meaning, nor symbolism, nothing to do with prehistoric religious practices nor sympathetic magic.....just a kind of play or the starting point of human cognition....

I would have voted for a GM chicken (GM'd to have more breast meat). Shows how much I know about stone/bronze whatever age acient fertility symbols!

Nabi on May 15 2009, 03:19 PM said:

Obviously, it's from the stone age cooking series, and it shows how to prepare a chicken for roasting. Note how prehistoric chickens were capable of prolonged flight, as evidenced by the huge breasts.