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Move Over Venus
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Volume 57 Number 1, January/February 2004
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by Kristin M. Romey
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Move over, Venus of Willendorf: Recent excavations for a gas pipeline near the town of Zschernitz in eastern Germany have revealed Central Europe's first Neolithic male statuette. The 7,000-year-old figurine, nicknamed the "Adonis of Zschernitz," is unusually well endowed, suggesting it may have had importance as a fertility symbol, according to Saxony state archaeologist Judith Oexle.
Only the torso remains of the originally eight-inch-high clay statuette. Markings on the body most likely represent tattoos. The Adonis of Zschernitz is now on display at the State Museum for Prehistory in Dresden.
© 2004 by the Archaeological Institute of America
www.archaeology.org/0401/newsbriefs/zschernitz.html |
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