The Venus of Waldstetten is an approximately 15,000 year old Venus figurine made of quartzite. The find was apparently brought to the site by people. The figure is unprocessed in its basic form, but has engravings that were clearly carried out by humans. Therefore, it is interpreted as a female figure. It is 5.8 cm long with a maximum width of 1.9 cm; 2.5 cm thick and weighs 25.3 g. The site is located at Waldstetten in the Ostalbkreis on a terrain level between the Rems Valley and the Swabian strata landscape.
The excavator was the amateur archaeologist Adolf Regen. [1] The Venus von Waldstetten is compared with the figurines of the Gönnersdorf design type, which were typical of the Magdalenian era. This type of female figure is named after the roughly the same old engraved depictions of female bodies on slate slabs from Gönnersdorf. [2] The circumferential engraving in the neck area means that in addition to the interpretation as a female figure, an interpretation as a phallus representation is possible, analogous to the interpretation of the double gender of the so-called Red one of Mauern. [3] The engraving on the "head" can also be seen as an aid when hanging the figure.
Baden-Württemberg, commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants as of 2019 across a total area of nearly 35,752 km2 (13,804 sq mi), it is the third-largest German state by both area and population. As a federated state, Baden-Württemberg is a partly-sovereign parliamentary republic. The largest city in Baden-Württemberg is the state capital of Stuttgart, followed by Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Other major cities are Freiburg im Breisgau, Heidelberg, Heilbronn, Pforzheim, Reutlingen, Tübingen, and Ulm.
The Zollernalbkreis is a Landkreis (district) in the middle of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The district is located in the Swabian Alb, and contains the second highest elevation of this range, the 1,011-metre (3,317 ft) high Oberhohenberg. In the south-east the district nearly reaches to the river Danube.
Tauberbischofsheim is a German town in the north-east of Baden-Württemberg on the river Tauber with a population of about 13,200. It is the capital of the Main-Tauber district. It is a popular tourist destination due to its numerous historical buildings, including substantial remains of the medieval town fortifications.
Johannes Gustav Riek was a German archaeologist from the University of Tübingen who worked with the SS Ahnenerbe in their excavations, and led the teams that excavated the Vogelherd Cave in 1931, the Heuneburg Tumulus burial mounds in 1937 and the Brillenhöhle 1955–63.
Franz Xaver Kraus was a German Catholic priest, and ecclesiastical and art historian.
Ernst Philipp Barthel was an Alsace philosopher, mathematician, and inventor.
Margret Hofheinz-Döring was a German painter and graphic artist.
Edmund Pfleiderer was a German philosopher and theologian.
Bernd Riexinger is a German politician of the left party Die Linke and member of the Bundestag representing Baden-Württemberg. From 2012 to 2021 he was co-chairperson of The Left alongside Katja Kipping.
The Protestant Church in Baden is a United Protestant member church of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), and member of the Conference of Churches on the Rhine, which now functions as a regional group of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE). The Evangelical Church in Baden is a united Protestant church. Its headquarter, the Evangelical Superior Church Council is located in Karlsruhe.
Schwabenhass is a neologism referring to the aversion to the approximately 300,000-strong Swabian diaspora in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany outside of Swabia. In 2013, the so-called Spätzle-streit gained nationwide attention.
Meßkirch Castle or Meßkirch Palace is located in the town centre of Meßkirch in the county of Sigmaringen in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The castle is a cultural and museum centre with castle tours, a county art gallery, a museum about philosopher Martin Heidegger, and the Oldtimer Museum with automobiles and motorcycles.
The Neckar-Odenwald Limes is a collective term for two, very different early sections of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, a Roman defensive frontier line that may have been utilised during slightly different periods in history. The Neckar-Odenwald Limes consists of the northern Odenwald Limes (Odenwaldlimes), a cross-country limes with camps, watchtowers and palisades, which linked the River Main with the Neckar, and the adjoining southern Neckar Limes (Neckarlimes), which in earlier research was seen as a typical 'riverine limes', whereby the river replaced the function of the palisade as an approach obstacle. More recent research has thrown a different light on this way of viewing things that means may have to be relativized in future. The resulting research is ongoing.
The Venus figurines of Petersfels are several small female statuettes from the Upper Paleolithic era, carved from jet lignite. The tallest figurine is called the Venus of Engen. The figurines were discovered in the Petersfels caves near Engen, Baden-Württemberg, excavated in 1927–1932 by Eduard Peters und Volker Toepfer and then in 1974–1976 and 1978 by Gerd Albrecht. They stand between 1.5 and 4 cm tall and are about 15,000 to 11,500 years old, created during the Magdalenian era. They are housed in the Museums of Freiburg im Breisgau and Engen.
The Adorant from the Geißenklösterle cave is a 35,000-to-40,000-year-old section of mammoth ivory with a depiction of a human figure, found in the Geißenklösterle cave in the Swabian Jura near Blaubeuren, Germany.
Raiko Krauss, born 1973 in Friedrichshain, Berlin is a German archaeologist of prehistory.
Ellen Widder is a German historian.
Nikolas Löbel is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Baden-Württemberg from 2017 to 2021. He resigned in March 2021.
Matthias Untermann is a German art historian and medieval archaeologist.
Hermann Bausinger was a German cultural scientist. He was professor and head of the Ludwig Uhland Institute for empirical cultural science at the University of Tübingen from 1960 to 1992. The institute has focused on the culture of everyday life, the history of traditions, and the research of narration patterns and dialects. His history of literature from Swabia from the 18th century to the present was published for his 90th birthday.