Adonis from Chernitz / Lake Constance

The ‘Adonis from Chernitz’ was found in 2003 near Leipzig. The figure was made from clay around 7,200 years ago. Another fragment, thought to be the thigh of a woman, was found at the same site. Archaeologists speculate that the two figures may have been used together to depict the act of copulation. Below I have provided links to a few useful articles. These point to many more prehistoric sites bearing depictions of sex, and discuss the social environments that might have existed to produce such depictions .

Adonis von Zschernitz / Adonis from Chernitz

(Click on pic above for larger version, and you might need to click on that version to magnify it still more.)

Adonis von Zschernitz / Adonis from Chernitz

Adonis and Venus

Articles about Adonis from Chernitz

News articles

Pornography in Clay, Matthias Schulz, Spiegel Online International

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Erotica May Date Back to Stone Age, Jennifer Viegas, ABC Online

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Journals and books

There are no links to articles from journals and books, but the following might help you track something down:

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Germania (mentioned in the Viegas article, but no article available online that I could find)

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ARCHÆO 1, 2004

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Louis D. Nebelsick/Jens Schulze-Forster/Harald Stäuble, ‘Adonis von Zschernitz’, Archaeonaut 4 (here)

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Von Peißen nach Wiederitzsch - Archäologie an einer Erdgas-Trasse

Lake Constance

In his article in Spiegel International, Pornography in Clay, Schulz mentions a find on the shores of Lake Constance:

An archeological dig on the banks of Lake Constance has produced something just as spectacular as the erotic clay figures from Saxony. Researchers discovered a temple whose walls were once adorned with protruding clay breasts. The “cult temple,” uncovered by archeologists from the southern German city of Ludwigshafen, is almost 6,000 years old.

…The mysterious ancient temple on the banks of Lake Constance proves that special erotic rituals already existed at this early juncture, long before Egypt’s pyramids were built. “The cult building stood on pylons directly on the shore,” explains archeologist Helmut Schlichtherle. The interior was painted with white dots. But the site’s truly unique feature is that eight large clay breasts seemed to grow out of the walls, evoking images of a place devoted to the erotic.

There is more evidence that the temple was once a place filled with billowing smoke and ecstasy. Bits of fabric, perhaps parts of priestly robes, were found. Also among the rubble was an imposing ceremonial vessel filled with birch resin, a substance that produces a bewitching scent when heated. Perhaps birch resin was the incense of the Stone Age.

For more information about lake dwellings see Helmut Schlichtherle, Lake Dwellings in South-Western Germany, Living on the Lake in Prehistoric Europe: 150 Years of Lake-dwelling Research, by Francesco Menotti (ed)

Underwater Archaeology

See an interesting page on underwater sites at www.abc.se

See also a review by Arne Emil Christensen in Nautical Archaeology (Journal of the of The Nautical Archaeology Society) of ‘The Proceedings of the 2nd International Congress on Underwater Archaeology’ (IKUWA). The congress was held in 2004. The review mentions a paper that discusses the Lake Constance site:

In the ‘Cult Site’ section, this reviewer was most impressed by the very careful excavation work of a site in Ludwigshafen, Bodensee, Switzerland. Here the clay daub of a burned house showed traces of white paint. The oldest dendro-date from the site is 3861 BC. The reconstructed decorative motifs contain lifesize female figures with the breasts sculpted in relief. The author discusses whether this is a case of cult in a private house or a cult building, suggesting the latter solution.

Tags: Adonis, archaeology, Chernitz, erotic, Lake Constance, prehistoric, Zschernitz