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The Venus Archive is a project dedicated to compiling and mapping all the known Venus figurines in one centralised location. The aim of this site is to create a comprehensive resource for studying these ancient artefacts and their cultural significance.
The term 'Venus figurines' is widely used to describe Upper Paleolithic female figurines, though this term is acknowledged to be anachronistic and Eurocentric. The original creators of these objects had no concept of the Roman goddess Venus. I use the term here solely as a practical and recognisable reference to the corpus of small prehistoric female figurines found across Europe and Asia and created between 40,000 and 11,000 years ago.
This site was created and maintained by Nicola Rushton. By trade, I'm a user experience designer. I grew up in Australia, in regional NSW, but am currently based in Amsterdam. I'm I am not currently affiliated with any academic institutions and I don't make any profit from this project.
An incredibly valuable resource for this work has been Don's Maps!
You can find me here!