Like many people I was originally drawn to Vienna and Galicia by the fame and notoriety of its fin-de-siècle period — Freud, Klimt, and all that — but as with anything you love, you want to learn more about its past. So the bookshelves begin to groan with histories of the Habsburgs and the Congress of Vienna. (Ilsa Barea’s Vienna: Legend and Reality remains the best that I’ve read, and I’ve read a few.) On my upcoming visit to the Austrian capital, though, I’ve got two ancient items I’m keen on seeing, and fortunately they’re mere steps apart.
“The Venus of Willendorf is the most important object in the entire NHM Vienna collection and one of the most famous archaeological finds in the world,” boasts the web site of the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien on the outer edge of the Ringstrasse, notwithstanding the suspiciously ironic name of the artifact. Almost 30,000 years old and unearthed in 1908 in Slovenia, the 11-centimeter (four-inch) high object may be the first artistic rendition of the female body in history. The NHM web site continues:
Stylistically, the Venus of Willendorf is most similar to the Venus figures of Eastern Europe. … There was obviously a very specific idea behind such Venus figures – an idea which for the people of the Palaeolithic was expressed by the image of a woman. The creator of the Venus of Willendorf did not represent an obese woman for her own sake. Instead, he or she shaped what they wanted to represent as an obese woman. Which thoughts, wishes and ideas were once associated with the Venus statues? We do not know.
And just across the way, past the Maria Theresa statue, sits the Kunsthistorische Museum Wien. Those of us who are trying to learn the German language can take a look at where it all began, with the “Negauer helmet” on display. Discovered in Slovenia (again) in 1811, the bronze helmet has been dated to the fifth century BC, and most interestingly it features an inscription — likely added to the helmet two hundred years later — which may be the first written evidence of a Germanic language. Ruth Sanders in her German: Biography of a Language writes:
All the experts agree that at least parts of the inscription represent a Germanic language, though they are scratched in the right-to-left alphabet of the Etruscans, non-Roman inhabitants of the western Italian peninsula. … The meaning of the inscription is not settled: “for Harigast of God,” “to Harigast the god,” and “Harigast made this,” among others, have been proposed. … Linguists agree that Harigast (its -i ending possibly indicating the dative case) is Germanic, but is it the name of the helmet maker, the warrior for whom it was made, or an alternative name for Odin or Wotan, the chief Germanic god? … The helmet’s inscription suggests that, in approximately the third century BC, a specifically Germanic language existed.
They were struggling with that dative case even back then. As I am now.
I perfectly understand if others find my enthusiasm for visiting these artifacts is a little peculiar, and perhaps it’s a little too far back into Central European history for most. (I know my kids will be happy not to be dragged along to these.) But not to worry; I’ll be getting to more recent artifacts, museums, and music as well. And I hope to get a bit more of a grasp on the dative case soon.
