Rare Prehistoric Female Figurine In Italian Cave Discovered By Archaeologists

Battifratta Cave in Poggio Nativo, Lazio, Italy, has long been the subject of interest among archaeologists. The cave, situated by the seasonal spring and with its promise of shelter and water, has played an important role for ancient people. Decades later, the archaeologists believe that the cave may have also played a ritualistic role, thanks to a mysterious female figurine discovered during recent excavations there.

Sapienza University of Rome

The clay figure is around 7,000 years old and dates from the Neolithic period. However, the researchers are not entirely sure about what the object represents. 

“A woman, a deity, a doll?” a statement from Sapienza University of Rome, the researchers ponder as they continue to search for the meaning, “Who does the clay figurine… represent?”

Whatever it represents, the researchers agree that the figure is “very rare” for Italy and “almost absent in the Tyrrhenian regions.” Even though the figure looks quite simple, however, the researchers note in the Sapienza University of Rome statement that its facial features are “outlined schematically” and that its creator seemed to take more care with “the hairstyle and body decorations.”

Sapienza University of Rome

Even though the meaning behind this clay figure is still ambigous but one thing is for sure and that is that it does seem to reveal something about Battifratta Cave.

As the Sapienza University of Rome statement explains, excavations at Battifratta Cave unearthed a number of other objects, as well as a human skeleton. This has led researchers to suspect that the cave, with its seasonal spring, may have played a spiritual role as well as a practical one.

“The presence of pottery, lithic industry, faunal and botanical artifacts on several stratified levels reveals the use of the spring and the cave not only for water supply but also for burial and ritual purposes, as evidenced by the human skeletal remains found and the clay figurine,” Cecilia Conati, a Classics professor at Sapienza University, explained in the statement.

Even though there is a long way to go for the researchers to learn more about these “burial and ritual purposes” at Battifratta Cave, other ancient sites in Italy offer hints.

Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/Wikimedia Commons

As Ancient Origins notes, ancient sites at Valcamonica (Camonica Valley) and Arene Candide in Liguria, each dating to around 7,000 B.C.E., appear to include ritualistic and ceremonial elements like petroglyphs. Therefore, it’s not a stretch to believe that Battifratta Cave was used for a similar purpose.

It is also not a far-fetched thought that the figurine discovered at the Battifratta Cave may have served some ritualistic purpose.

Female figures like the one found in the cave have been discovered before. The most famous example is perhaps the Venus of Willendorf statue, which is 30,000 years old and depicts a voluptuous woman made out of limestone.

It is unanimously beleived by the researchers that the Venus of Willendorf statue — and others like it — likely served ritualistic purposes and celebrated fertility, femininity, and eroticism.

Which suggests that it could be possible that the female figurine in Battifratta Cave played a similar role for ancient people in the region.

The research to understand the true meaning behind the figurine is underway amd reesearchers are eager to learn more about these figures to understant the value it held in the ancient societies.

As the statement from the Sapienza University of Rome noted, the female figurine is one piece in a much larger puzzle. They declared: “This valuable find will add much new information about what is turning out to be a key site in the prehistory of Lazio and central Italy.”