Venus of Petřkovice

{{Infobox artefact

|image=Petřkovická venuše.jpg

|image_caption=Replica of Venus of Petřkovice

|material=Hematite

|size=Height: 4.5 cm

|created=25,000 years

|location=Brno, Czech Republic

|discovered_by=Bohuslav Klíma

|discovered_date=14 July 1953

|discovered_place=Ostrava, Czechoslovakia

}}

File:Prehistoric Times of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia - NM Prague 68.JPG at an exhibition in the National Museum, Prague]]

The Venus of Petřkovice ({{langx|cs|Petřkovická venuše}} or Landecká venuše) is a pre-historic Venus figurine, a mineral statuette of a nude female figure, dated to about 23,000 BCE (Gravettian industry) in what is today the Czech Republic.

Discovery

It was found within the current city limits of Ostrava (Ostrava-Petřkovice) in the Czech Republic, by archaeologist Bohuslav Klíma on 14 July 1953. It was beneath a mammoth molar at an ancient settlement of mammoth hunters. Many stone artifacts and skeletal fragments were also found nearby.

Features

The statue measures 4.5 x 1.5 x 1.4 cm and is a headless torso of a woman carved from iron ore (hematite). Uniquely, the absence of the head appears to be the author's intention. Also, unlike other prehistoric Venus figurines, it shows a slender young woman or girl with small breasts.Leslie G. Freeman (ed.), Views of the Past: Essays in Old World Prehistory and Paleanthropology, Mounton Publishers, 1978, {{ISBN|90-279-7670-8}}.

Location

It is now in the Archeological Institute, Brno, but between 7 February - 26 May 2013 it was displayed in the exhibition Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind,{{Cite web |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/ice_age_art.aspx |title=Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind |access-date=2017-06-15 |archive-date=2019-04-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190410162532/https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/ice_age_art.aspx |url-status=live }} at the British Museum in London.