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Historical Note

Obesity in the Neolithic Era: A Greek Female Figurine

Helen Christopoulou-Aletra, PhD1; Niki Papavramidou, PhD2; Paolo Pozzilli, MD, PhD3
Professor, History of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece; 2History of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece; 3Professor, Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes, University Campus Bio-Medico, Via Emilio Longoni, Rome, Italy
In this paper, we present a female figurine made of clay, found in Farsala,Thessaly, Greece, and which is housed in the Athanassakeion Archaeological Museum of Volos, Greece.This Neolithic figurine has visible characteristics of female obesity and belongs to a class of figurines ironically named Venuses.The figurine is described, and speculation underlying the reason for its construction and uses are presented. In addition, the historical and social background of the Prehistoric period is taken into consideration, in an attempt to evaluate the characteristics of ancient feminine obesity and compare it to its modern definitions. Key words: Venus, obesity, Neolithic, figurine, ThessalyGreece
1Assistant

characteristics based on their construction, sex, general shape and stature. The potter had to take into account the beliefs, taste and social needs of the entire group to which he belonged. The figurine had to convince people to be liked by them, and to be either a symbol or a direct copy from nature. To achieve these goals, the artists gave the figurines certain characteristics that keep up with the Neolithic prototypes. These characteristics created a type of art that easily influenced other artists of the neighboring hamlets and eventually the artists of more distant areas.

Neolithic hamlets and caves have been found in hundreds of sites throughout Greece. However, only in Thessaly, which is a geographical area in Greece, are there more than 170 places of Neolithic interest. It seems that Thessaly was one of the first places in Europe to enter the Neolithic period, with the development of crop cultivation and animal domestication. In this area, pottery appears to have developed even from the early Neolithic period. The female figurine presented (Figure 1) comes from this area, specifically from Farsala. It belongs to the Middle Neolithic period (5th Millennium B.C.) and is almost 7 cm in height. It preserves the typical characteristics of the ancient Neolithic period and is thought to be an exquisite piece of sculpture of this period.1 Neolithic figurines have certain
Reprint requests to: H. Christopoulou-Aletra, PhD, Assistant Prof. for the History of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 73 Nikis Ave., 54622 Thessaloniki, Greece. Fax: +30 2310 999139; e-mail: ealetra@med.auth.gr

Figure 1. Neolithic figurine from Thessaly (Athanassakeion Archaeological Museum of Volos, Greece).
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The Neolithic clay figurines of the period had natural characteristics. The Neolithic agricultural man belonged to the first communities that created cognitive objects that resembled natural objects. The seeking of food forced people to understand the relation between the causes of natural phenomena and their effects. The Neolithic man had to observe the animal habits concerning mating, nursing, finding food, pregnancy and giving birth. The abstract artistic tendency, apparent in the Neolithic art, derives from the inability of the artist to create an exact copy of what he observed; apparently, this is the reason why he created symbols of his observations. Thus, the hands of the figurines were not considered to be indispensable when the genitals had to be emphasized. Similarly, the hair would not add something important to the characteristics of the face. Also, fingers and nails where secondary to feet and legs. The Neolithic figurines of Thessaly cannot be characterized as decorative. They are ugly, badly shaped and sometimes gargoyle. They are not the products of people who have solved their everyday problems; they were made under the pressure of everyday struggle for survival.2 In Neolithic figurines, the sex is declared through the engraving of genitals. Hair, face, and characteristics or clothing (which are almost absent in the Neolithic figurines of Thessaly) cannot be considered as representative of a particular sex. Other than the genitals, breasts can declare the sex of female figurines. Apparently, the only decorative element in the Neolithic figurines of Thessaly is the engraving of the inguinal area. The Neolithic female figurine found at Farsala dates back to the 4th Millennium B.C. and is housed in the Athanassakeion Archaeological Museum of Volos. It is a naturalistic figurine, representative of this type. The most important characteristic of these figurines is the exaggeration in size. The represented woman made of clay, is seated with her legs folded and the ends of her arms resting on her knees. The head is totally natural, and its size has no exaggeration at all. The neck is strong, long and large. The hair is organized in grace and falls on the neck. Only the nose is enlarged, triangular, beakshaped and consequently unnatural. However, it resembles the kind of noses appearing in other figurines found in Tirnavos and Otzaki.3 Her shoulders are broad, rounded and slope naturally into her

plump upper arms. There are no signs of elbows or wrists, and only a few fingers can be distinguished. The breasts, located high on the chest, naturally separated, are small comparable to the rest of the body. In the middle of the body, the waist narrows and the abdomen protrudes in a broad gentle convexity. The navel is not indicated. A triangular engraving indicates the female sex, without any specific elaboration. The legs are long, full, nearly round in section, and they lack clear signs of articulation at the knees. The size of the thighs is almost the same as the upper body. The ankles are not evident, and one can detect only a few toes on the feet. These characteristics probably have their roots in the folk ideas on health. A healthy woman is always fleshy under the waist and rarely has problems during childbirth with her pelvis. In addition, the stoutness of the female figure is inherited from the shape of the Paleolithic figurine pottery. The unnaturally large buttocks and thighs are detected in the characteristics of the Paleolithic Venus, without however being present in the characteristics of the Gravvetian or the Magdalian period. Certain characteristics associate the presented figurine with the class of Neolithic figures found throughout Greece and the Aegean region. The figurine was presumably a symbol of fertile femininity, similar to other figurines such as the famous Venus of Willendorf.4 These statuettes, ironically called Venuses, are among the most widely known of all Paleolithic and Neolithic objects.5 This particular female figurine represents an obese woman, a Venus one could say, whose sitting position makes apparent its characteristics of obesity. Almost all these figurines are of nude, stout women that do not exceed 10 cm.6 There have been numerous interpretations of the Neolithic female figurines of Thessaly. Some can see in them the Mother Goddess, the Goddess of fertility, the Magna Mater,7 an always stable firm residence of all immortals implying actually the Gods of Mount Olympus,8 mentioned by Hesiod in his Theogony (7th Century B.C.). The equating of Mother Goddess to Earth was possibly introduced when she was first seen as the natural partner of the Sky, which symbolized the male. The association of the female figurine with Earth, Maternity and Fertility is usually assumed, although the nature of the association is rarely specified. Usually, the
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Mother Goddess is simply taken as symbolizing fertility. However, the fertility is specific to human fertility,9 rather than its more general use for animals, humans and plants. This interpretation has been agreed by most authors.10-12 Although different opinions have been expressed with respect to specific archeological issues, none has concerned the actual interpretations.13 Some other authors have questioned the significance of figurines in general.14,15 Finally, others have suggested that, among the members of the Neolithic hamlet, these female figurines represent one of the attempts to communicate, because the lack of writing surely posed problems in social, economic and family life.16 Whatever the interpretation of these figurines may be, the great number of such symbols found in excavations all over Greece shows their importance in every day life during the Neolithic period, along with the close relation with other Venuses found in Europe.

References
1. Theocharis D. Neolithic Greece. Athens: National Bank of Greece edition, 1973: 67. 2. Hourmouziades G. Neolithic figurines. Thessaloniki: Vanias Editions, 1994: 145. 3. These are other places of Thessaly. Hourmouziades G. Neolithic figurines. Thessaloniki: Vanias Editions, 1994: 148. 4. Colman E. Obesity in the Paleolithic era? The Venus

of Willendorf. Endocr Pract 1998; 4(1): 58-59. 5. Ackerknecht EH. History of medicine. Athens: Marathia, 1998: 36. 6. McDermott L. Self-representation in upper Paleolithic female figurines. Curr Anthropol 1996; 37: 227-275. 7. Ucko P. Anthropomorphic figurines of predynastic Egypt and Neolithic Crete with comparative material from the Prehistoric Near East and Mainland Greece. London: Andrew Szmidla, 1968. 8. Hesiod. Theogony. Vol. 22. Introduction, translation, comments: S. Girgenis, Thessaloniki: Zitros, 2001: 293. 9. Ucko JP. The interpretation of Prehistoric anthropomorphic figurines. J R Anthropol Inst 1962; 92: 38-54. 10.Hawkes J. The Mother Goddess. The Observer, 24 September 1961. 11.James EO. The cult of the Mother Goddess, London, 1959. 12.Renaud EB. Prehistoric female figurines from America and the Old World. Scientific Monthly 1929; 28: 509-12. 13.Weinberg SS. Neolithic figurines and Aegean interpretations. Am J Archaeol 1951; 55: 121-33. 14.Hogarth DG. Aegean Sepulchral figures. Essays in Aegean Archaeology presented to Sir Arthur Evans. Oxford, 1927: 55-62. 15.Myres J. Who were the Greeks? Sather Classical Lectures 1930; 6. 16.Hourmouziades G. Neolithic figurines. Thessaloniki: Vanias Editions, 1994: 233. (Received February 17, 2006; accepted March 16, 2006)

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