Women In Paleolithic Art

During the early years of civilization, women have been portrayed in many different ways from the statues in the Paleolithic period to the Goddess in Mesopotamian, plus the Queens of ancient Egypt. One thing all these cultures have in common is woman was always being a sign of fertility which makes sense being that they have the ability to carry children. Even though there has been a few women represented in these times for the most part it was a man 's world. Females did not have the same expectations as did the men. They were looked at as life-givers and healers.

Art played a tremendous role in the Paleolithic culture , one example being Venus of Willemdorf(awk) which happens to be the most famous of the sculptures during this …show more content…
Many goddesses represented fertility and nurture as they did in the Paleolithic era which showed that females were life givers, but for the Mesopotamians goddesses represented more like Inanna, she was a young girl who travelled south and ends up in Eridu. She meets up with the Enki god of wisdom, he starts making toast and bestowing on her his powers. Enki grants her all eighty of his powers. She travels back home and is now blessed as a god. Now she is not only goddess of fertility but everything. This myth goes to show how there was powerful women during these times. Another was Ishtar goddess of love and war, she stood tall with weapons on top of her wings she also was a symbol of …show more content…
Like in the statue of Menkaure with a Queen, they are both standing with their feet apart, but his stride is a little bit bigger, while hers step is smaller representing that he has more power in the relationship being that he is King. The wife in the sculpture also has her arm wrapped around the king, which shows marital affection of husband-and-wife there unity their sense of resolution testifies to their purpose which is to endure for eternity. The Egyptians also paint women in a different light during Dynasty 18 a painting called female musicians and dancers entertaining guests at a meal, it shows women naked dancing and women with jewels all over praying and clapping(awk sent). Art work started showing another side to the Kings life being that they would have mistresses. Yes woman were still thought of as life givers, but now we see that some women are poisonous(clarify). Significant changes were appearing in the Egyptian art before art had been really stable because they were considered a gift to the gods and they had to be perfect but now everything about the gods was being questioned by the Egyptian. The principle of art had changed a new art started taking place and it was more realistic.