Brno, Aug 17 (CTK) – Venus of Vestonice, a priceless prehistorical statuette, was brought yesterday amid heavy security measures from the Moravian Land Museum in Brno to the Fei firm elsewhere in the city for examination under microscopes aimed to provide detailed information on how it was made.
The experts want to find out in laboratories whether Venus was made of one piece of clay and gain more detailed information on the mysterious nicks, cavities and hollows in the statuette, Eva Pankova, spokeswoman for the museum, said.
The statuette is normally kept in a special safe deposited in an unknown place. It is only taken out to be displayed at exhibitions, mostly abroad.
During the transfer yesterday, the statuette placed in a box was accompanied by three cars with armed police.
The statuette, uncovered in Vestonice, south Moravia, is the best known Czech archaeological find. It is one of the first pieces of evidence of prehistoric work with burnt clay. It is 25,000 to 29,000 years old.
The statuette was found by a team of scientists led by Karel Absolon in a prehistoric fireplace of mammoth hunters on July 13, 1925.
It was uncovered amid remnants of the fireplace broken into two pieces which first did not look as if they belong together. Only after they were cleaned, it showed that the whole looks like a woman’s figure. Now, it rests in a case and the museum staff prefer not manipulating it not to damage it.
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