Oldest depiction of female form shows that modern archaeologists are pornsick misogynists

[redqueen]

Ever so sorry! That should read "SOME modern archaeologists are pornsick misogynists"

This is old but I stumbled across it again so I thought I'd post it.

Just as an aside, I wonder if there was a retraction or apology from Science Now or Nature.

“The Earliest Pornography” says Science Now, describing the 35,000 year old ivory figurine that’s been dug up in a cave near Stuttgart. The tiny statuette is of a female with exaggerated breasts and vulva. According to Paul Mellars, one of the archaeologist twits who commented on the find for Nature, this makes the figurine “pornographic.” Nature is even titling its article, “Prehistoric Pin Up.”

It’s the Venus of Willendorf double standard all over again. Ancient figures of naked pregnant women are interpreted by smirking male archaeologists as pornography, while equally sexualized images of men are assumed to depict gods or shamans. Or even hunters or warriors. Funny, huh?

Consider: phallic images from the Paleolithic are at least 28,000 years old. Neolithic cultures all over the world seemed to have a thing for sculptures with enormous erect phalluses. Ancient civilizations were awash in images of male genitalia, from the Indian lingam to the Egyptian benben to the Greek herm. The Romans even painted phalluses on their doors and wore phallic charms around their necks.ncc imagery as pornography. Instead, it’s understood to indicate reverence for male sexual potency. No one, for example, has ever suggested that the Lascaux cave dude was a pin-up; he’s assumed to be a shaman. The ithyphallic figurines from the Neolithic — and there are many — are interpreted as gods. And everyone knows that the phalluses of ancient India and Egypt and Greece and Rome represented awesome divine powers of fertility and protection.

Yet an ancient figurine of a nude woman — a life-giving woman, with her vulva ready to bring forth a new human being, and her milk-filled breasts ready to nourish that being — is interpreted as pornography. Just something for a man to whack off to.

It’s not as if there’s no other context in which to interpret the figure. After all, the European Paleolithic is chock full of pregnant-looking female statuettes that are quite similar to this one. By the time we get to the Neolithic, the naked pregnant female is enthroned with lions at her feet, and it’s clear that people are worshipping some kind of female god.

Yet in the Science Now article, the archaeologist who found the figurine is talking about pornographic pin-ups: “I showed it to a male colleague, and his response was, ‘Nothing’s changed in 40,000 years.’” That sentence needs to be bronzed and hung up on a plaque somewhere, because you couldn’t ask for a better demonstration of the classic fallacy of reading the present into the past. The archaeologist assumes the artist who created the figurine was male; why? He assumes the motive was lust; why? Because that’s all he knows. To his mind, the image of a naked woman with big breasts and exposed vulva can only mean one thing: porn! Porn made by men, for men! And so he assumes, without questioning his assumptions, that the image must have meant the same thing 35,000 years ago. No other mental categories for “naked woman” are available to him. His mind is a closed box.

...

http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2009/05/14/oldest-depiction-of-female-form-shows-that-modern-archaeologists-are-pornsick-misogynists/

[corkhead]

1. Maybe that's where the term "chick" came from

looks more like a whole roasted chicken than human imho

[Squinch]

8. ... it does, doesn't it?

[ismnotwasm]

2. What the fuck.

That shit was not "pornographic"-- it was more religious or even useful. Why do people want to make everything "porn"???


http://www.suppressedhistories.net

If you have FB, join this community and look at a far better sample of archeology photo's and interpretations.

Which reminds me-- I always meant to buy this poster

http://www.suppressedhistories.net/sacravulva.html

[Squinch]

7. Great site! Thanks.

[geardaddy]

3. I had an anthropology prof in college

whose specialty was India, particularly Tamil Nadu. She was always furious with other male anthropologists who talked about the Indian figurines with full breasts as pornographic. I thank her for changing my youthful mind.

[ismnotwasm]

4. Anthropology was a male dominated field

They interpreted what they thought was the natural order. One of the things that alternately cracks me up and irritates me is referring to prostitution as 'the oldest profession' when early prostitution was a religious rite, not exclusive to women, the "Epic of Giglimesh" notwithstanding. (I'm all excited about reading Tolkien's version)There's a lot of anthropological findings that were clearly female centric, and there were societies where inheritance came down the female line, but certainly didn't make them "matriarchies"-- there may have been a few, but there is scanty evidence to support them actually existing as full matriarchies ( oops, I'm going off on a tangent)

Full breasts or multiple breasts often indicate fertility, which may have been a sign of sexual desirability in women, because thy were fertile. The vulva itself had a variety of meanings, life, rebirth, cleansing, safety etc. Here's a kind of touchy feely article (no pun intended) about 'reclaiming the vulva'--back before the times where it's was considered shameful or 'dirty'--and let's face it, one of the problems with labeling things pornographic, it gives things that feeling of looking at the body disrespectfully.

http://cliterallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2009/04/reclaiming-magic-of-vulva.html

The figurines often have round bellies. Some Goddess's, like my favorite Kalima, were overtly sexual in some aspects, as was more recently an aspect of the Morrígan. So sex was certainly involved, in our stories of beginnings and battles, but generally it had a purpose other than pleasure, although pleasure existed, it wasn't a big deal and was definitely not pornographic. I doubt they needed porn.

Even today, if you go to certain Native American Sweat lodges, some are round in shape and represent the womb, you enter one way, and leave another.

[geardaddy]

5. That's why I liked her classes the best

She always was much more open to breaking the mold of the old order.

[ismnotwasm]

6. ...

[robbob]

9. There is a great documentary that is available on youtube

....something like "The History of Pornography"? Sorry, don't have time to look for it now. But the gist of it is; when archaeologists unearthed the ruins of Pompeii they were horrified to discover all kinds of "obscene" artwork, paintings, statues, etc. depicting human sexuality, bestiality (famous statue of Pan, half man half goat having intercourse with woman), and other "perversions".

The whole collection was stored away very hush-hush in the British museum and was only available for viewing by certain privileged "gentlemen" whose superior moral code could ensure they would not be corrupted by such images.

It was an interesting juxtaposition between the repressed and horrified English society and the open an unashamed displaying of these images in an ancient society. I didn't watch the whole thing, but I would like to get back to it; it was fascinating.

[Orrex]

10. It would seem that any modern interpretation will invariably carry a modern bias

Any broad-stroke analyses will be informed by our own prejudices one way or the other.

We can say "that's obviously a fertility totem" or "that's a pornographic idol," but why is one interpretation more authoritative than any other?

[ismnotwasm]

12. Depends on how you view the past

They believed in Gods, Goddesses, omen, witches, ghosts, spirits of all sorts. That's the only way they had the interpret their world. They didn't know what caused storms, draughts, babies, good weather, didn't know what death was, exactly---they gave Gods the credit. (Although I just know there was a skeptic or two)

Personally, as I alluded to earlier, you go back far enough, or look at certain cultures you don't think of sex as pornographic. It just is.

But you have to look at a number of cultures; our oldest set of legal rules, the Code of Hammurabi, was clearly patriartical, as well as classist. The two often go together.

Old Celtic cultures-- much has been lost, but there are indications women had some equality, as well as sexual freedom. Unfortunately war and religious conversion brought a sense of shame to sex, as well as destroying many, many cultures, not just the Celts.

Pornagraphy itself, or seeing sex as pornography seems to me a way to control and commodify human sexual behavior.

The word has too much baggage, I guess

[nomorenomore08]

13. "...seeing sex as pornography seems to me a way to control and commodify human sexual behavior."

Exactly. Which is why the "anti-porn = anti-sex" fallacy is so frustrating. Of course some anti-porn folks, mainly right-wing Christians, do have equally unhealthy attitudes towards sex and the human body, but the idea that an artificial, capitalistic, commercialized distortion of sexuality is all there is, strikes me as incredibly sad.

[ismnotwasm]

14. I think, in a certain sense the idea of pornography evolved from Christians

In the sense that as the the church was growing, there were many "cults" Like Athenian worshipers--that used sex in their rituals. There is some evidence that Paul's sexual moralizing angst was directed toward these cults, which were ultimately wiped out, rather than 'rules' of behavior.

There is also some evidence that the prohibitions against homosexuals as far back as Leviticus came from the same type of competition. Much later, Once the council of Nicea 'codified' the structure of the church the political considerations of what went in the bible went on for centuries.
So it was never questioned since it was Abrahamic, patriartical religion, like Islam and Judaism. So much information was lost, it's hard to say if the prohibition was a mistranslation or an pushback against another religion, or an actual belief--which I highly doubt.

Look at the story of David and Jonathan in the OT--

16:21 And David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him greatly; and he became his armourbearer.

16:22 And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me; for he hath found favour in my sight.
16:23 And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. (16:23)
Much Later:

18:1 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
18:2 And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. (18:
And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments ... and his girdle."
18:3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.
18:4 And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.

It's a huge complicated war story, but I've always thought of it as a love story as well.

[nomorenomore08]

15. Hard to see the David/Jonathan story as anything but a romance. Also the story of Jesus healing

the Roman centurion's servant/companion - the two men there could easily be construed as a same-sex couple, which Jesus certainly seems to have had no objection to.

Many ancient cultures either tolerated or outright celebrated what we would now consider romantic companionship between men, even if adult males engaging in anal sex with each other was often a taboo, because the "receiving" partner was seen as lowering himself.

Also an interesting idea RE: the separation of sexuality from everyday life, including religious rites - what we now call pornography could perhaps be seen as compartmentalizing sex (and by extension, the body) as opposed to integrating it with other aspects of one's existence. The stereotype of a fundamentalist's sex life - lights off, missionary only, etc. - seems like an extreme example of this compartmentalization.

[ismnotwasm]

17. Exactly

You put how I meant to say it. Succinct too. I tend to meander a bit around topics

[nomorenomore08]

18. I was a lit major in college - had to write analytical essays on all sorts of texts -

so I guess I'm used to having to express complex ideas in a concise way. Definitely serves me well in discussing, say, politics. I'm also a fiction writer - my emphasis as a student was creative writing.

[redqueen]

20. Now this is interesting.

"what we now call pornography could perhaps be seen as compartmentalizing sex (and by extension, the body) as opposed to integrating it with other aspects of one's existence"

Very interesting insight there. Thanks

[boston bean]

11. Aw shoot! I thought Violet may have returned...

but I see it is an older posting...



Good article though! Thanks for posting!

[libodem]

16. Probably a little Goddess figure

And who knows the little hash marks may have been an early way of making the moon times to keep track of menstrual cycles.

We knew about procreation before men and it was kept secret until the Patriarchy took over and ruined the planet.

Once they figured out men had something to do with the creation of life the idea of the 'baby daddy' became the only important element in civilization. Only semi kidding here.

[redqueen]

21. That's also interesting.

I hadn't thought much about matrilineality but I am very curious about the history of it now.

[IronLionZion]

19. Where's the baby bump?