The Venus of Willendorf

In 1908, Szombathy and Bayer found in the loess of Willendorf* in a layer belonging to the Aurignacian, a statuette of limestone, a little more than four inches high. It represents a naked woman on whose mature body the breasts and hips are very prominent. The statuette to which its discoverers gave the name: “The Venus of Willendorf”, illustrates most beautifully what an astounding mastery of art man attained in the paleolithic period. An artist's loving care has created it about 25.000-30.000 years ago, working painstakingly with the help of fine tools of stone. What strikes one in this little sculpture is the presentation of the head. While the rest of the body, which has been shaped with great naturalism, shows neither clothes nor any ornament worth mentioning, the head is covered completely by a braided thing of globular form worked out quite distinctly. The significance of this cover has not been understood so far. The whole body is naked. Why is just the head covered? Why is it covered in such a conspicuous way?

Psychoanalysis has revealed the anxieties, tendencies and reactions of prehistoric man which are being repressed to the unconscious nowadays. Encouraged by these discoveries I shall try to solve the puzzle of that precious and startling work of art. It apparently contains, and has handed down to us, a piece of reality that thousands of years later has developed, in poetry, myth, dreams and folk customs, the motif of the “covered head”.

I hope to prove in the following that the motif of the covered head has derived from the various anxiety affects that were emanating from the mother. If I succeed, we shall have found the key to the solution of our problem.

Closely connected with the image of the mother is man's original anxiety. It is the birth-anxiety, caused, and being caused anew with every human being, by the dyspnoea during the process of birth, by the painful experience of being pushed from the warm