Acheulian Goddess
The Oldest Human Image
Until the past few decades, the famous Willendorf Goddess, carved of bone 30,000 years ago, was held to be the earliest human-crafted work of art and veneration.
The Acheulian Goddess predates Willendorf by an amazing quarter-million years, and may be as old as 800,000 years! It is remarkable to note the similarities between the Willendorf and the far older Acheulian.
Both figures are distinctly female, great-breasted with featureless head and discrete limbs. Using flint tools, the maker of the Acheulian Goddess intentionally adapted an existing small stone, which already had breast-like Mother Goddess features, by adding incised grooves delineating the head and arms. Like Willendorf, the Acheulian appears to have a groove suggestive of the sacred vulva.
This Paleolithic image offers breathtaking evidence that our worship of the divine feminine could have extended up to 250,000 years deeper into hunter-gatherer antiquity than previously suspected! In the face of this discovery, 3,500 years of current patriarchy pales to insignificance.
Clearly the old, ecology-centered goddess values have been with us for a vaster sweep of time than our recent misadventures of war and exploitation. And now we choose to reclaim those older values.
Sacred Source is proud to be the only available source for this reproduction, which is based on drawings and photographs from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Archeology, where the original is housed. Hold her in your hand to feel her shape, fecundity and power.
[232,000 - 800,000 BCE] Ganges Clay. #AC