An epochal discovery made by a Romanian high school student. An enigmatic statuette, more than 17,200 years old, was discovered this year. It is the only one found intact worldwide in the last 100 years. In addition, it is the most important paleolithic statue in Romania and in south-east Europe.

CHILDREN NEWS tells you where you can see it, but also where you find its “sisters”. Because, in Europe, many such statues have been discovered over time. They were generically called “Venus”. In addition to the name, the town from which they come is added. Thus, the one discovered in us is “from Piatra Neamț”. Her most famous “sister” is Austrian – “Venus from Willendorf“.

Made of sandstone, “Venus from Piatra Neamț” measures only 10 cm. It has no physiognomy, but a kind of “hairstyle” over the face. Its face is often called “alien face”, and you can see in the pictures why. But other “Venuses” looks the same, with a hat or a “helmet” with a pattern on the face.

The statue was discovered in Piatra Neamț, this summer, on June 21st. The researchers Marin Cârciumaru, Elena Cristina Nittu and their team were working in an area near the city of Piatra Neamț. This was severely affected by floods in the second decade of June. During a flood, archaeologists thought this might be helpful for their work.

The first to notice the statuette in the mud and put his hand on it was a 19-year-old student, Andrei Șmeu. The boy, a student at the “Petru Rareș” National College in Piatra Neamț, helped archaeologists, during his free time. “I found a statue! It looks like Willendorf! She has a hairstyle ”, Andrei exclaimed, writes Libertatea.ro.

”She has a certain symbolic value, those that are rendered in this opulent form, that is, the highly developed breasts, buttocks, and especially the fact that there are no details on the head, so only those anatomical parts of the body that are related to fertility, we he thinks that they were a symbol of fertility, of the protective mother of the respective clan. There are slender statues that have no connection with this idea and in the end the last hypotheses lead to the idea that the sculptor of that period carved the model in front of him, slimmer less slender,” says the professor.

The age of the statue, established in America, is about 17,200 years, following analyzes performed at one of the best laboratory in the world, at Beta Analitica, in the USA. The same age was also established by a complex laboratory in Magurele. The statuette was dated with Carbon 14.

The statuette, which is part of the Romanian Treasure, can now be seen at the Museum of Human Evolution and Technology in Paleolithic in Târgoviște. It may also be some sort of ancient religious statue which may have been worshipped for a variety of reasons.

The most famous “sister” of “Venus from Piatra Neamț” can be found in Vienna. Nicknamed “Venus from Willendorf”, after the place where it was found, the statue is made of oolitic limestone. It is colored with red ocher and measures 11 cm high. The citizens have established that he is 26,000 years old. It was discovered in 1908 by one during the excavations conducted by archaeologists Josef Szombathy, Hugo Obermaier and Josef Bayer at a paleolithic site near Willendorf, a city in Austria. The limestone from which it was carved is not found in the area. From here and the conclusion that the statuette was brought from elsewhere. It is currently housed at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna.

“Fat and beautiful”

The researchers say that in the Paleolithic / Stone Age artists began to make sculptures of women, most being obese. Over 100 of these have been discovered by archaeologists from Siberia to Spain. Something else to keep in mind: most human figures, made between 30,000 and 5,000 BC, are women. More precisely, 90%. And, without exception, they are all exaggerated women. Historians say that these statues are representative of the time when they were made, in which human society was matriarchal. That is, women played the most important role in communities.

Exaggerated forms expressed the idea of ​​motherhood. At the time, the offspring settled on the maternal line, the mother being the most important. Moreover, fat, contrary to what we consider today, has been a form of beauty in most cultures of the world. Even in our country, the expression “fat and beautiful” is still used.

Another feature of all the statues “Venus” is the absence of the face, on this aspect, the specialists could not establish an explanation.