One of the most fascinating archaeological discoveries of the early 20th century is a small Paleolithic stone sculpture known as the Venus of Willendorf. Who is she? What does she represent? Is this a portrait of an actual Stone Age woman? Or might this be an image of a prehistoric Mother Goddess?
The Venus of Willendorf was discovered by Josef Szombathy in 1908 in a small village near Willendorf, Austria. She is estimated to have been made around 25,000 years ago, during the Upper Paleolithic era, making her one of the oldest surviving works of art, and one of the earliest images of a human body made by humankind. She is carved from an oolitic limestone, and tinted with red ochre. She is short in height, slightly over 4 inches tall, easily held in the palm of a hand. She is now in the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria.
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Both her size (portability) and the material from which she was made (not local to Willendorf) are indicators that the artifact was made elsewhere and carried to Willendorf. Her arms, though visible, are negligible and crudely depicted. Though a head is present, the figure has no visible face, and her head is covered with circular horizontal bands of what might be rows of plaited hair, or perhaps a type of headdress. Like other similar sculptures, feet too are missing and were probably never part of the overall design. She would not have stood on her own, although she might have been pegged into soft ground.
The reference to Venus is metaphorical, since the figurines predate the mythological figure of Venus by many thousands of years. Some scholars reject this terminology, instead referring to the statuette as the “Woman of Willendorf”.*
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Very little is known about the Venus’s origin, method of creation, or cultural significance, however, she is one of numerous “Venus figurines” surviving from Paleolithic Europe. The purpose of the Venus figurines is the subject of much speculation, though many theories have been suggested by historians, archeologists and anthropologists.
Some researchers have suggested that the figurines may have been used as good-luck totems, aphrodisiacs made by men for their own appreciation, or educational tools for women—potentially representing the different phases of child bearing and development of the female body during pregnancy. Another potential theory suggested by professors Catherine McCoid and LeRoy McDermott is that the figurines may have been created as self-portraits by women. This theory stems from the correlation of the proportions of the statues to how the proportions of women's bodies would seem if they were looking down at themselves. According to McCoid and McDermott, “what has been seen as evidence of obesity or adiposity is actually the foreshortening effect of self-inspection.”
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However, the most popular theory and widely-held belief is that the Venus of Willendorf and similar figurines may have been depictions of a fertility goddess, or a mother goddess. Parts of the figurines that are most emphasized are the anatomical features that are most commonly associated with fertility and childbearing. This includes the pubic region and breasts. However, other features such as the arms, legs, and face, are not amplified in a similar manner, being omitted almost entirely. This may suggest that the figure is not a portrait of a particular person, but rather a representation of the reproductive and child rearing aspects of a woman. In combination with the emphasis on the breasts and pubic area, it seems likely that the Venus of Willendorf had a function that related to fertility.
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The Venus figurines support the prevailing views among historians on the existence of a Mother Goddess worship in the prehistoric era. In many ancient cultures, a Mother Goddess (also referred to as Great Goddess) represents nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction, or an embodiment of the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes called the Earth Mother. The depictions of these Mother Goddesses are considered allegorical figures or personifications of the idea or concept of fertility, nature or Earth itself. These representations are very common in prehistoric, stone age religions.
In fact, while the Goddess of Willendorf sports a rather voluptuous female shape, associated with her fertility and life-giving force, when viewed lying down on her back, the statue takes on the form of the earth, with the curves of her body being the hills and valleys of the landscape.
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The worship of
the Great Mother
The spiritual journey of Earth’s people began with the idea of the Goddess, universally called the Great Mother. Thousands of years before the Bible was ever written, stories of creation revolved around a Goddess. The nurturing spirit of the Goddess guided our ancestors, who saw the acts of giving and nurturing as supreme. The reverence they felt for the primal force of the female was mirrored in their relationship to Nature, who was also revered as the supreme Mother.
Our early human ancestors prayed to the Creatress of Life. At the very dawn of religion, God was considered female. The Paleolithic remains of female figurines, red ocher in burials, and vagina-shaped cowrie shells appear to be early manifestations of what was later to develop into a complex religion centering on the worship of a Mother Goddess as the source and regeneratrix of all forms of life.
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Anthropological evidence shows that the first 30,000 years of Homo sapiens’ existence was dominated by a celebration of the female processes: of the mysteries of menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth; of the analogous abundance of the earth; of the seasonal movements and cyclical nature of life. The fact that both human and animal life is generated from the female body and that, like the seasons and the moon, woman’s body also goes through cycles led our ancestors to see the life-giving and sustaining powers of the world in female, rather than male, form.
It is believed that the Great Goddess was worshiped among early agricultural peoples throughout the Mediterranean, the Aegean, Turkey and the Near East, Northwest Africa and Europe through Neolithic times, until the Bronze Age. It has been archeologically confirmed that the earliest law, government, medicine, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy, wheeled vehicles, ceramics, textiles and written language were initially developed in societies that worshipped the Goddess.
Many Goddess-worshipping societies had no temple or temple-figures. Their sanctuaries were in nature, they worshiped among trees, on mountain peaks, in caves, in rustic shrines. Their rituals aimed to preserve the peoples’ relationship with the Earth.
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Goddess-worshipping cultures and the role of women in society
It was quite apparent that the myths and legends that grew from, and were propagated by, a religion in which the deity was female, and revered as wise, valiant, powerful and just, provided very different images of womanhood from those which we are offered by the male-oriented religions of today. In Goddess-worshipping cultures, women were empowered and honored. They were priestesses, judges, doctors, artisans, athletes, healers, herbalists, midwives, farmers, business entrepreneurs—cultural leaders on all levels. The evidence shows that some of the most “advanced” societies of the ancient world—technologically as well as culturally—were matrifocal, i.e., woman-oriented and led by women. It is important to note that although matrifocal societies were led by women, they were egalitarian. Women had a place of honor, respect and reverence, not domination.
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Matrifocal societies are not built on dominance principles, but on relational, partnership models. Cultural historian Riane Eisler refers to these ancient matrifocal cultures as the partnership model, in contrast with the dominator model in which men rule over women and dominate in society. In ancient matrifocal societies, women owned their bodies, their children, and their living properties; women made vital decisions affecting the survival and well-being of their people. Women had control over their movements, ideas, and bodies. Economic relations were not experienced as separate from religious and social relationships; they were originally based on gift exchange, which served a communal-bonding function, not a competitive or profit-making one. Material goods had value only in terms of the social, relational and spiritual uses to which they were put.
Many anthropologists and historians believe that the suppression of the ancient Goddess religion and matrifocal societies—where the feminine and nature were revered and honored—can be linked to many of our modern social and environmental challenges. The inevitable by-product of the loss of respect for the Feminine Principle of creation was the creation of an artificial separation from our innate connections with the Earth as a Living Being. The loss of our connection to the feminine principle has led to the destruction of the original holism—the intimate interconnected principle by which our ancestors lived by (and indigenous people still live by)—in favor of domination, division and separation, the most devastating separation being the one we created with the planet.
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Watch the documentary ‘Goddess Remembered’ (available for free on Youtube) to learn more about the Great Goddess and matrifocal societies of the past, and how the loss of goddess-centric societies can be linked to today's environmental crisis.
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What can the Venus of Willendorf teach us about self-acceptance and taking up space?
In Willendorf’s Legacy: The Sacred Body, Tamara Albana writes: “The Goddess has taught me innumerable lessons—her many aspects and faces contain immense wisdom. But it was the Willendorf Goddess who held one of the most powerful lessons. She taught me that self-acceptance was possible. Her message is evident even in her presence, like the presence of my Grandmother and Aunts. The fierce feminine that isn’t afraid to take up space. Let us listen to her message, gaze upon her incredible image, and remind ourselves to take up the space that we deserve.”
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The Venus of Willendorf can also teach us about autonomy and self-determination.
Molly Rener writes: “One of the things I love about the Willendorf Goddess is her air or self-possession. She is complete unto herself. She may be a fertile figure, but she is not clearly pregnant and she does not have a baby in her arms, which indicates that her value was not exclusively in the maternal role.”
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Here, you will find simple earth-based and nature-oriented practices, prompts and rituals that will help you connect with the energy of the Goddess.
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Ground and center. Take a deep breath. Feel your bones, your skeleton, the solidity of your body. Be aware of your flesh, of all that can be touched and felt. Feel the pull of gravity, your own weight, your attraction to the earth that is the body of the Goddess. You are a natural feature, a moving mountain. Merge with all that comes from the Earth: grass, trees, grains, fruit, flowers, animals, metals, precious stones. Return to dust, to compost, to mud.
Meditation from The Spiral Dance, by Starhawk
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Ground and center, and visualize a round full moon. She is the mother, the power of fruition and of all aspects of creativity. She nourishes what the New Moon has begun. See her open arms, her full breasts, her womb burgeoning with life. Feel your own power to nurture, to give, to make manifest what is possible. She is the sensual woman; her pleasure in union is the moving force that sustains all life. Feel the power and generative life-force in your own pleasure. Feel the nurturing, unconditionally loving, all-encompassing, all-allowing mother in you.
Meditation from The Spiral Dance, by Starhawk
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Ground and center. Take a deep breath. Feel the blood flowing through the rivers of your veins, the liquid tides within each cell of your body. You are fluid, one drop congealed out of the primal ocean that is the womb of the Great Mother. Find the calm pools of tranquility within you, the rivers of feeling, the tides of power. Sink deep into the well of the inner mind, below consciousness.
Meditation from The Spiral Dance, by Starhawk
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This is a Spanda practice to get you in touch with the core underlying spark of aliveness pulsing inside of every cell in the universe. “Spanda is a Sanskrit word meaning “divine vibration”, pulse, scintillation, or throb. Spanda refers to the subtle creative pulse of the universe as it manifests into the dynamism of living form. This term is used to describe how Consciousness, at the subtlest level, moves in waves of contraction and expansion. Spanda is the core union of Shiva Shakti consciousness and energy that underlies the fabric of creation.
Begin your practice by getting quiet inside, tuning into the core of your aliveness. Underneath your feelings, your thoughts, your sensations, there is this core place that is just pure life, living in you. Begin to hum and vibrate, sensing and feeling into this core vibration of aliveness.
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When you hum, feel free to stay on one note or change tones. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you stay vibrating for the duration of the practice (7+ minutes), even if it gets annoying. Keeping humming and vibrating!
As you continue humming, if there are other beings in the home you’re inside of—animals, people, plants—keep humming but sense into how this same spark of aliveness that you are resonating and vibrating with in yourself is the same spark in them, and let your humming begin to resonate with this core aliveness of the plants, animals, beings, people, who are sharing this space with you.
And now begin to sense out beyond the walls of your home—the water and trees, animals, plants, people that are just outside your walls. Sensing into the exact same spark, the core of aliveness that dwells in them, dwells in you, and vibrate and resonate with them.
And now, take your resonating out even further—the entire planet, the insects, the birds, the trees, the water, the people, all of the living beings, all of life—resonating and vibrating with the same spark, the same core. Resonate your core with them.
As your humming practice comes to an end, just rest in silence, feeling this one pulsation, this one breath, this one spark, that dwells in you and everything. Sensing into this place, allowing it to resonate, one note played throughout eternity. One song being sung. One existence living itself. Just rest in this place.
Practice by Maya Luna
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Ground and center. Hold your cup cradled in both hands. Breathe deep, and feel the power of water, of feeling and emotion. Be in touch with the flow of your own emotions: love, anger, sorrow, joy. The cup is the symbol of nurturing, the overflowing breast of the Goddess that nourishes all life. Be aware of how you are nurtured, and how you nurture others. The power to feel is the power to be human, to be real, to be whole. Let the strength of your emotions flood the cup.
Meditation from The Spiral Dance, by Starhawk
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“Go to the oak tree and ask for its story. Go to the river and ask for its story. Go to the goldenrod and ask without saying anything. Ask with your nose, your belly, your eyes. The answer won’t always be words. Won’t always be sound. Sometimes it will be a feeling in your body. Sometimes it will be a smell. Stories don’t belong to human beings. But human beings belong to stories. Let’s enter back into the complex, tangled work of letting go of authorship and letting ourselves be told.”
by Sophie Strand, from her essay ‘Myco Eco Mytho Storytelling’
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Dive deeper into the Venus of Willendorf, feminine spirituality, and the ancient worship of the Great Goddess, with these books, essays and documentaries.
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✎ Book
‘The Great Goddess: Reverence of the Divine Feminine from the Paleolithic to the Present’
by Jean Markale -
☾ Documentary
‘Goddess Remembered’
by Donna Read -
✎ Book
‘Willendorf's Legacy: The Sacred Body’
by Trista Hendren, Pat Daly & Tamara Albanna (Ed.) -
✎ Book
‘The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future’
by Riane Eisler -
✎ Book
‘When God Was a Woman’
by Merlin Stone -
✎ Book
‘The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype’
by Erich Neumann -
✦ Illustrated Book
‘My Name is Goddess of Willendorf’
by Tamara Albanna & Arna Baartz -
✎ Book
‘The Great Cosmic Mother’
by Monica Sjoo & Barbara Mor -
✎ Book
‘The Goddess and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images’
by Marija Gimbutas -
✎ Book
‘The Return of the Feminine and the World Soul’
by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee -
✎ Book
‘Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives’
by Jean Shinoda Bolen -
✎ Book
‘The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess’
by Starhawk -
✎ Book
‘Primal Myths: Creation Myths Around the World’
by Barbara Sproul -
✎ Book
‘The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image’
by Jules Cashford & Anne Baring -
✎ Book
‘Return of the Goddess’
by Carol P. Christ -
✎ Book
‘The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine’
by Christine Downing -
✎ Book
‘Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine’
by Joseph Campbell -
☆ Essay
‘Why Women Need the Goddess’
by Carol P. Christ -
✎ Book
‘The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets’
by Barbara G. Walker -
✎ Book
‘Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great and Small’
by Ted Andrews