Hello List,
apparently, my message from yesterday did not get trough.
So I will re-post it here...
Greetings, Herbert
--- Begin Message ---
Jeannie Devon writes:
> I had heard mention in a couple places that the Venus of
> Willendorf was actually discovered in a cache with several
> Moldavite points. Was there any information on this, or can
> anyone add anything?
The occurence of several worked Moldavites (though probably not
points or arrowheads) is mentioned by Koeberl et. al in their
1988 paper "Moldavited from Austria". Regarding Austrian Moldavites
and prehistoric men, the write:
"Siegmund described a single moldavite found in maoldavite found
near the village of Stainz, near Graz, in Styria, [southern]
Austria. The object has the typical appearance of a moldavite,
with surface features like grooves and pits and does not show
any evidence of being worked by man. Recently, this moldavite
has been analysed; its chemestry is indistinguishable from
moldavites from the Bohemian stre field. From this evidence,
it was concluded tha the Stainz moldavite had been transported,
most probably by prehistoric man. No other moldavited have
been recovered from Styria.
Another interesting occurence of moldavite glass in Austria was
described by Bayer (1918). Several splinters of green moldavite
glass were found together with the famous "Venus von Willendorf"
which has an age of about 30 000 years in Lower Austria. The
worked tektites have been thought to be lost after the death of
J. Bayer. Recently, a worked moldavite appeared in a private
collection in the United States, which had been obtained from
Miss N. Noriega, formerly the secretary of Otley Beyer. Micro-
probe analyses of the worked tektite piece showed that it is
indeed a moldavite. Thus it may be one of the Willendorf moldavite
splinters.
Another worked piece of Moldavite, associated with prehistoric
remains was found at the Gundelsh�hle [a cave] in the Waldviertel
[region in northern Austria]. Like in the Willendorf case, the
moldavite has been worked by Paleolithic men."
By the way, the paper is available from ADS via this link (squeeze
the URL in one line):
http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?
bibcode=1988Metic..23..325K&db_key=AST&high=3d16ef555c09838
Marco Langbroek wrote:
> By the way, not to disappoint anyone: but the figurine on display
> in the museum, is actually a copy. The real one is kept in a safe.
As far as I know, the copy has been replaced by the original a few
years ago, when some sponsor paid for a safe glass display case
with alarm equipment and bulletproof glass.
If someone wants to look at the Venus, here is an image (squeeze
the URL in one line, agian). She apparently had a little bit more
weight than the women that pose for artists these days... ;-)
http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.v/v136200.htm;internal&action=_setlan
guage.action?LANGUAGE=en
Greetings,
Herbert Raab
Linz, Austria
--- End Message ---
