You've probably heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls and seen King Tut's mask. But if you want to beat your family at Jeopardy, you'd better learn their backstories. Here's our cheat sheet for six iconic artifacts from the ancient world.
Venus of Willendorf
Now: Natural History Museum Vienna in Austria
Short, fat and nearly 30,000 years old, Venus of Willendorf is the female icon of the Ice Age. The four-inch-tall figurine bears pronounced breasts, buttocks, belly and vaginal lips, but lacks feet or facial features. Braids, or perhaps a knit cap, cover her head, and specks of pigment suggest the tan limestone artifact was once painted red.
Archaeologists found the figurine in 1908, about a week into excavations at Willendorf II, an Austrian site along the Danube River, roughly 50 miles from Vienna. Throughout the 1900s and 2000s, several other digs occurred there, with ever-improving methods, which unearthed two less-famous Venus figurines and hundreds of stone tools.
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