Austrians Fete Voluptuous, Prehistoric Venus

It's Venusmania in Vienna, where Austrians are celebrating the discovery 100 years ago Thursday of a tiny but voluptuous figurine that dates back 25,000 years to a time when mammoths roamed the region.

Venus wine, Venus chocolates, and pancakes with Venus jam — Austria is going all out Friday to fete the limestone beauty known as the Venus of Willendorf for the hamlet along the Danube where archaeologists stumbled upon her a century ago.

The Venus of Willendorf is just 4 inches tall but is celebrated for her undeniably curvy, feminine figure. Experts say the statuette dating back to the Paleolithic era is among the world's oldest depictions of a woman.

But exactly what she represents — or who carved her all those thousands of years ago — remains a mystery. Was she a fertility symbol, a lucky charm, a goddess — maybe even a prehistoric piece of pornography?

''That's of course an interpretation question,'' said Walpurga Antl-Weiser, an expert at Vienna's Natural History Museum who has written a book about her, adding that it's hard to know what the humans of that era were thinking.

The figurine wasn't made from local materials, and over the years, similar statuettes have been found elsewhere, including France and Russia, Antl-Weiser told The Associated Press.

Back then, mammoths, bison and woolly rhinos roamed Willendorf, with humans living in camp communities, according to the Natural History Museum.

Modern-day archaeologists found the statuette during an excavation in 1908 and brought her for safekeeping at the Natural History Museum. She made her public debut in 1998.

Before Friday's big bash, she'll make a brief homecoming trip back to Willendorf. Starting Saturday, the Venus of Willendorf — along with several ''sisters'' from Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic — will be on display at the Natural History Museum until February.

Fact is, the figurine continues to fascinate.

Reproductions of the Venus are widely available — as chocolate, marzipan, even as soap. On Friday, Austria's post office will officially unveil a special stamp in her honor.

To Antl-Weiser, the interest is easy to explain.

''She's very corpulent but still very beautiful,'' she said. ''One gets the feeling she has become an icon.''

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On the Net:

Natural History Museum Vienna: www.nhm-wien.ac.at