Oldest Naked Woman Sculpture Discovered, Obsession With Sex Goes Back 35,000 Years

Live Science:

If human culture seems obsessed with sex lately, it's nothing new. Archaeologists have discovered the oldest known artistic representation of a woman - a carved ivory statue of a naked female, dating from 35,000 years ago.

Read the whole story: Live Science

Comments

[Malkin71]

I wish all of the feminists I argued with on the "Hip to Strip..." article about whether sex drive is a hardwired biological thing....c­ould tell me why I'm still wrong...

[CharlieMarlowe]

Don't sweat it. Feminists here are claiming that these figures show that women used to be worshipped as goddesses. No-goddesses were worshipped as goddesses-ordinary women, and that means most women, were not worshipped. The same with men. Some men were revered as living gods, the vast majority of men lived ordinary lives of "quiet desperation"

[thebanana]

Wow, we were interested in sex even bfeore the dinosaurs roamed the earth? Who knew?

[Diogenis]

This is by far the most stupid article I have ever read.

[jaschrod]

But, how can that be? Do not the christians believe that man has only existed for somewhere around 6,000 years, doggonit.

[hackerblaster]

First thing I thought. How do they forward an article like this to their friends? More lies from science? It must be really hard sometimes to close your eyes and keep chanting "you didn't see that..you believe in god..." over and over.

[camper65]

You really ought to heed the dichotomy in the lyrics of a Blood, Sweat and Tears song: "I swear there ain't no heaven and I pray there ain't no Hell." You better be right.

[RobertHenryEller]

I suspect the obsession with sex goes back a bit futher than 35,000 years. Or there would not have been anyone around 35,000 years ago to be obessed about sex.

And it's not an obsession, it's a drive. We don't control it. It controls us.

[AgeofReason]

AMEN! This is exactly what I was thinking as I read this article!

[Pantelleria01]

People are blind.....­.... This is clearly a man and a woman. there are two heads and she is embracing a man who is coupling with her. I am a sculptor and there is no question that this is TWO people....­..how strangely blind people are. What a great little carving.

[gayleg]

You're right.
At least that's what the photo looks like. It's a cool little sculpture. Sweet. Not anything like porn.

[Ed438]

Breaking story!!! Stop the presses!!!!

Seriously, I have to agree that it's a couple. I don't know why all these "experts" seem unable to observe what is in front of them.

[jaschrod]

Looks like two women to me.

[ivoteforsmartpeople]

If you go to the full story and look at the slide show of the carving from different angles, it is then obvious that it is only one woman figure without a head.

[gcallaghan]

You're right. It looks just like Octomom

[terragazelle60]

wrong...th­e top portion is a loop where it could be word...wha­t looks like a head is her bosom...it is a figure of a woman. If you read the article you would read that there is no head, but a loop where it could be worn. No one would have taken the trouble to find the clay, create the figure and fire it if it did not mean something important. A fertility figure. Figures simular to this has been found in all parts of the world...so­me in the Middle East, some in china, the Nile...
I recommend a book..When God was a Woman, by Merlin Stone. The history of matriarchy goes back to the beginning of humanity. Even the burials were more elaborate for females...­wheather the figure was of the clan ancesstress or a fertility Goddess..i­t shows that the female was honored. The large breasts and hips show an abundance.­..they were the symbol of nurtureing and giving life.
There have been many figures throughout history in all cultures that show these types of figures and thought of as Goddesses. Maybe some folks need to do some studying..­.and maybe the writer of this article is one of them.
This could have been very interesting but was written so meaningless to be boreing.

[Macready]

we have seen these fertility figures before . . . they could have been used in a number of ways . . . to ensure fertility for the species, for crops . . for rebirth the continued regeneration of life . . .just as an aside I have always found it iodd that these "fertility" figures seem to depict a middle aged woman's figure rather than that of a young woman . . who would be more fertile than the older woman . . .

[CharlieMarlowe]

One researcher has a hypothesis that these "fat" figures" are depictions of people suffering from a thyroid problem. He says that people who lived in inland areas had iodine deficiencies, the result of which were these kind of "bloated" bodies. Also, these might not be fertility figures at all. It is a popluar idea to call them such, but we really don't know the purpose for which these works were created.

[Macready]

I hadn't heard about the thyroid theory . . .

you are right of course we don't know if they were fertility figures . . . that is just conjecture . . .

[yappnmutt]

pornography wasn't the first successful business on the net by accident. its no surprise it was the first thing on the human mind, period. the nonsense about fertility gods somehow serving some higher purpose is nonsense. its always been about the need to connect tab a with slot b. if it was just about fertility it wouldn't feel sooo good.

[ThankGodhesgone]

Do some research. Jumpingcholla is correct. This is not about sex or porn. It is a representation of the mother goddess.

She represents fertility and was worshipped by many cultures long before any Christian, male diety.

[PoohBear]

"The figure is explicitly - and blatantly - that of a woman, with an exaggeration of sexual characteristics (large, projecting breasts, a greatly enlarged and explicit vulva, and bloated belly and thighs) that by twenty-fir­st-century standards could be seen as bordering on the pornographic,"

So in other words, porn is completely normal and has been going on for many thousands of years. Just as I suspected.

[DC]

That is not a definition of pornographic, but perhaps erotic.

Pornography may be violent, is often ugly and always dehumanizing.

Big difference.

[Malkin71]

"Porn...is­...always dehumanizi­ng."

Please explain this statement.

[gayleg]

This is not pornographic at all. Though I suspect that's why it's getting publicity. It defend porn as somehow natural.

Baloney.

I don't see how it proves any "obsession" either.

[JumpingCholla]

It's a goddess figure, not an early version of Playboy. What a pathetic article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_goddess

[peterg76]

I'm pretty sure sex has been an obsession since the first sexually-r­eproducing organisms, 6 or 7 hundred million years ago.

[jaschrod]

The sexual climax is the most intense emotion/feeling we have in the body, as proclaimed by science.

[camper65]

You need SCIENCE to tell you that? I pity you.

[Steamboater]

This ain't science. Where do they get the notion that this means that anyone was obsessed with sex? This means as much an obsession with sex as do the figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Maybe it all has to do with an obession for life. The only one obsessed with sex is the one who wrote that piece.

[DC]

Exactly.

[Rjchinook]

And I see the Virgin Mary in piece of toast and Mickey Mouse in the clouds.

[mcle3002]

I would say that the "obsession" with sex started a lot longer than 35,000 years ago. Hence we exist.

[3dtrix]

My dad was a salesman - he always used to say that sex was popular because it was centrally located...