The latest Venus...

is only a bit over 2.4" high. Since she's missing her head, that might have made her around 3" originally. Stone. Carved with other stones and bones and antlers!



Forgot to give you that detail when I gave you the picture.




And I found several pottery goddesses in my research! No pictures, so I'll be pushing my own creativity to come up with her image.



In Sumeria, Mami (also known as Amadubad, Aruru, Ma, Mah, Mama, Ninmah and Nindum) is the potter creatrix, using clay to form 7 male and 7 female figures, which then are given life. As Babylonia took power over Sumeria, her name was changed to Aruru the Great...but the story was the same. And through the many recorded cuneiform stories, (on clay tablets) her name became Ishtar, Inanna, Ninhursag, and Mammitu.


Originally all pottery belonged to women. "The art of pottery is a feminine invention; the original potter was a woman. Among all primitive peoples the ceramic art is found in the hands of women, and only under the influence of advanced culture does it become a man's occupation" (Briffault "The Mothers" 1927.)



Native Americans of the Southwest US had Clay Woman and Clay Man...mainly as part of a creation story. They are kachinas of Spider Woman's parents, and wear masks with white faces and red eyes. This is a dance/pantomime which the kachinas act out, where Old Man is dancing with a stick while Old Woman is making a pot...and so on. The story moves into the clay figures that represent every kind of animal...thus creating the actual ones. Clay figures are taken to be the seed from which the real objects grow.



The use of pottery for functions in the home are the places where she, the goddess of pots, must have resided. When sculptures have another purpose, they represent something else besides what you see...which means symbols were being used. For the archaeological finds, they go with lost stories.


Who was our goddess of pottery though? There doesn't seem to be any reference to that womanly deity who first made the wonder of clay become stone. It's just another thing that archaeologists may have skipped over, but eventually we will find the first pots...after all, they've found the early spear points. And of course I'm a potter, not an archaeologist, so there may be the "first/earliest pot" already. Once again, I'm sure willing to learn.



And oh, how fickle she (the goddess of pottery) was. For any of you who have had a beautiful pot fail, your hope that is dashed by it splitting, exploding, or just drooping into uselessness...think of all the failed pots that our foremothers had to deal with. No wonder there would have emerged a deity who might be asked to give the creations her blessings.