Another example of what I call a visual pun, or a visual Mondegreen (see below) in rock art, and image which can be two things in one. It is a bas-relief sculpture on a slab of limestone created at the Abri de Laussel during the Gravettian period 27k - 22k BCE, and discovered there in 1911 along with six others including the famous "Venus with a horn."
“A mondegreen is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in
a way that gives it new meaning. Mondegreens are most often created by a person
listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric
clearly, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.” (Wikipedia) In my current usage this image is the visual equivalent
of a mondegreen because of the many different interpretations it has been
given.
The Abri de Laussel is a rock shelter, not a cave as such, which explains the dearth of cave paintings. They could not be expected to last that long exposed to the elements. It was, however, found to contain a large deposit of artifacts including seven bas-relief sculptures. "Bas-relief sculptures, restricted to small protable objects during the Aurignacian, are executed on a larger scale during the Gravettian. A prime example is at the site of Laussel in southwest France, where a series of limestone blocks clustered in the midst of a living site were sculpted in bas-relief with a series of human figures. In these cases, not only the overall figure is raised in relief against the stone support, but details such as arms are placed in relief against the body of the person represented." (White 2003:82)
The best known of these sculptures is the Venus of Laussel (Femme a la Corne), the figure of a corpulent woman holding up a bovine horn in her right hand. Other so-called ‘Venus’ figures were also retrieved there as well.
"Engraving known as 'les deux personnages' (the two people), Laussel (Dordogne), France - Gravettian. Combined height of figures: 20cm. Musee d'Aquitaine." White 2003:84.
“This engraving from Laussel, dated from 32,000 BP to 20,000 BP has been identified as a male-female copulation scene, a birthing scene, or most recently as a Double Goddess in mirror reflection. Perhaps as a 'Playing Card' image of two women, it represents the changing of the seasons from winter to summer, and the resulting dark and light cycle that occurs.” (Hitchcock 2022) This is somewhat akin to asking people what they see in Rorschach tests. The same image but so many different interpretations.
“It was discovered in 1911 at almost the same time as the Femme à la Corne, and was created by pecking the stone. It is engraved on a sandstone block, probably originally attached to the wall. It was discovered 'in the rubble', and may have been completed on the stone after it had detached from the wall. The photo on the left is the traditional way to look at the sculpture, but if we rotate it through 180° a second Venus appears, shown at right, with the head at the top, a neck, and breasts.” (Hitchcock 2022) In my opinion it was, of course, completed on a rock that had fallen from the wall of the shelter. To create this effectively the creator probably had to be able to rotate it and manipulate it, and view it from both directions. Hitchcock referred to this as sandstone. Other sources refer to it as limestone and I suspect this is correct as this is the region of limestone caves and their art.
There is not much information available on this piece, it is outstripped by its more famous sister, the above-mentioned ‘Venus.’
So what is it really meant to represent. I really don’t know, but as I stated above I like to think of it as a visual pun created by someone with a sense of humor – a very long time ago. And that makes them a whole lot more like us than we used to give them credit them for.
NOTE 1: Discrepancies in dates may indicate different estimates by different studies, or improved dating technologies.
NOTE 2: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment