The Venus of Tan-Tan is an alleged artifact found in Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

.It and its contemporary, the Venus of Berekhat Ram

Venus of Berekhat Ram

The Venus of Berekhat Ram is a pebble found at Berekhat Ram on the Golan Heights in the summer of 1981 by archaeologist N. Goren-Inbar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. An article by Goren-Inbar and S...

, have been claimed as the earliest representations of the human form.

Description

It is 6 centimeters long quartzite

Quartzite

Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...

 rock, and has been interpreted as a depiction of the human form, gender indeterminate and faceless, dated between 300,000 and 500,000 years ago. It was discovered in 1999, during an archaeological survey by Lutz Fiedler, state archaeologist

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 of Hesse

Hesse

Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, in a river terrace deposit on the north bank of the Draa River

Draa River

The Draa is Morocco's longest river . It is formed by the confluence of the Dadès River and Imini River. It flows from the High Atlas mountains south-ward to Tagounit and from Tagounit mostly westwards to the Atlantic Ocean somewhat north of Tan-Tan...

 a few kilometers south of the Moroccan town of Tan-Tan

Tan-Tan

Tan-Tan is a city in Tan-Tan Province in southern Morocco. It is a desert town with a small population, with only few claims to fame:*The nearby port, Tan-Tan Plage, or Port of Tan-Tan, about 25 kilometres away from Tan-Tan itself...

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Comment

There is some controversy amongst archaeologists as to its nature and origin. To its discoverer and others, e.g., Robert Bednarik, the object had a general human-like shape that was accentuated by carving it with a stone-wedge; some artificial smudge stains are interpreted as remnants of red ochre pigments used by humans to further accentuate the human-like form.

For others, notably Professor Stanley Ambrose of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the rock's shape is just the result of natural weathering and erosion, which coincidentally produced a remotely human-like object, i.e., a geofact

Geofact

A geofact is a naturally formed stone formation that is difficult to distinguish from a man-made artifact....

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External links

• http://donsmaps.com/tantanvenus.html