Laussel Venus Upper Paleolithic Goddess with a Horn

The Venus of Laussel, or Femme a la corne (Woman with a Horn in French) is a Venus figurine, one of a class of objects found in Upper Paleolithic archaeological sites throughout Europe. Unlike many images which are portable art, the Laussel Venus was carved into the face of a limestone block found in Laussel cave in the Dordogne valley of France. Why Shes a Venus The 18-inch (45-centimeter) high image is of a woman with large breasts, belly and thighs, explicit genitals and an undefined or eroded head with what appears to have been long hair. Her left hand rests on her (perhaps pregnant) belly, and her right hand holds what looks to be a large horn—perhaps the core of a horn of an ancient buffalo (bison) and sometimes referred to as a cornucopia. The horn core has 13 vertical lines etched onto it: while her face has no facial features, it appears to be pointed in the direction at the core, perhaps looking at it. A Venus figurine is an art history term for a relatively life-like drawing or sculpture of a human being—man, woman or child—found in many Upper Paleolithic contexts. The stereotypical (but by no means the only or even the most common) Venus figure consists of a detailed drawing of a womans lush and Rubenesque body which lacks details for her face, arms, and feet. Laussel Cave Laussel cave is a large rock shelter located in the Dordogne valley of France near the town of Laussel, in the municipality of Marquay. One of five carvings found at Laussel, the Venus was carved onto a limestone block that had fallen from the wall. There are traces of red ochre on the sculpture, and reports of the excavators suggest that it was covered in the substance when it was found. Laussel Cave was discovered in 1911, and scientific excavations have not been conducted since that time. The Upper Paleolithic Venus was dated by stylistic means as belonging to the Gravettian or Upper Perigordian period, between 29,000 to 22,000 years ago. Other Carvings in Laussel The Venus of Laussel is not the only carving from Laussel Cave, but it is the best reported. The other carvings are illustrated at the Hominides site (In French); brief descriptions extracted from the available literature follow. The Femme a la Tete Quadrillà ©e, (Woman with a Gridded Head), is a bas-relief of a woman with her head completely covered with a grid representation, perhaps of a net or handkerchief. It measures 15.3x15 in (39x38 cm).The Personnages Opposes (Opposed Persons) or Carte à   Jouer (Playing Card) Venus is what seems to be an overhead view of two women seated facing each other, but the overall image is that of a single body with two heads, similar to the way a royal card is traditionally illustrated in a deck of playing cards. Scholars suggest this may represent a woman giving birth or one woman being assisted in labor by another.The 9.4-in (24-cm) block on which Le Chasseur (The Hunter) is carved is broken and only the torso and part of one arm remains. The body illustrated is that of a young, slim man or woman.The Venus Dehanchà ©e (The Ungainly Venus) or Venus of Berlin, holds a curved object in her hand, perhaps another horn core. In 1912 it was sold to the Museum fà ¼r Và ¶lker kunde in Berlin where it was destroyed during World War II. A mold impression of the sculpture still exists, and the block measured 17x15 in (43x38 cm). The Laussel Venus and all of the others, including the mold of the Ungainly Venus, are on display at the Musee dAquitaine in Bordeaux. Possible Interpretations The Venus of Laussel and her horn have been interpreted in many different ways since the sculptures discovery. Scholars typically interpret a Venus figurine as a fertility goddess or shaman; but the addition of the bison core, or whatever that object is, has stimulated much discussion. Calendric / Fertility: Perhaps the most common interpretation from Upper Paleolithic scholars is that the object the Venus is holding is not a horn core, but rather an image of the crescent moon, and the 13 stripes cut into the object are an explicit reference to the annual lunar cycle. This, combined with the Venus resting her hand on a large belly, is read as a reference to fertility, some speculate that she is illustrated as pregnant. The tallies on the crescent are also sometimes interpreted as referring to the number of menstrual cycles in a year of an adult womans life. Cornucopia: A related concept to the notion of fertility is that the curved object may be a precursor of the classical Greek myth of cornucopia or Horn of Plenty. The story of the myth is that when the god Zeus was a baby, he was tended by the goat Amalthea, who fed him with her milk. Zeus accidentally broke off one of her horns and it magically began spilling out unending nourishment. A horn cores shape is similar in shape to that of a womans breast, so it may be that the shape does refer to unending nourishment, even if the image is at least 15,000 years older than the story from classical Greece. Art historian Allen Weiss has commented that a fertility symbol holding a fertility symbol is an early representation of meta-art, or art about art, in which the figure of Venus contemplates its own symbol. The masculine side of the cornucopia fertility theme reminds us that the ancient Greeks believed that procreation occurred in the head. In this version of the interpretation, the horn represents male genitalia. Some scholars suggest that the tally marks might represent a hunters score of animals slaughtered. Priestess of the Hunt: Another story borrowed from classical Greece to interpret the Venus is that of Artemis, Greek goddess of the hunt. These scholars suggest that the Laussel Venus is holding a magic wand to help aid a hunter trap a pursued animal. Some consider the collection of drawings found at Laussel together as different vignettes of the same story, with the slim figure representing a hunter being assisted by the goddess. Drinking horn: Other scholars have suggested that the horn represents a drinking vessel, and thus evidence for the use of fermented beverages, based on the combination of the horn and the clearly sexual references of the womans body. This concept ties in with the idea that the venus is not a goddess but instead a shaman, since shamans are thought to have used psychotropic substances to reach into alternative states of consciousness. Musical instrument: Finally, the horn has been also interpreted as a musical instrument, possibly as a wind instrument, a horn indeed, in which the woman would blow into the horn to make a noise. Another interpretation has been that the horn core is an idiophone, a rasp or scraper instrument. Idiophone players would scrape a hard object along the incised lines, rather like a washboard. Bottom Line What all of the above interpretations have in common is that scholars agree that the Venus of Laussel clearly represents a magical or shamanistic figure. We dont know what the carvers of the ancient Venus of Laussel had in mind: but the legacy is certainly a fascinating one, perhaps because of its ambiguity and unsolvable mystery. Sources da Silva, Candido Marciano. Neolithic Cosmology: The Equinox and the Spring Full Moon. Journal of Cosmology 9 (2010): 2207-010. Print.Dixson, Alan F., and Barnaby J. Dixson. Venus Figurines of the European Paleolithic: Symbols of Fertility or Attractiveness? Journal of Anthropology 2011.Article ID 569120 (2011). Print.Duhard, Jean-Pierre. Les Figures Fà ©minines En Bas-Relief De Labri Bourdois À Angles-Sur-Langlin (Vienne). Essai De Lecture Morphologique. Palà ©o  (1992): 161-73. Print.---. The Shape of Pleistocene Women. Antiquity 65.248 (1991): 552-61. Print.Huyge, D. The Venus of Laussel in the Light of Ethnomusicology. Archeologie in Vlaanderen 1 (1991): 11-18. Print.McCoid, Catherine Hodge, and Leroy D. McDermott. Toward Decolonizing Gender: Female Vision in the Upper Paleolithic. American Anthropologist 98.2 (1996): 319-26. Print.Weiss, Allen S. An Eye for an I: On the Art of Fascination. SubStance 15.3 (1986): 87-95. Print.

The Importance Of Teamwork And Increase Teamwork At Seagate

CEO Bill Watkins started EcoSeagate in 2000, after becoming president of the hard drive manufacturing company Seagate. EcoSeagate is a team development meeting held in the desolated mountains of New Zealand. 200 employees are chosen and split into 40 groups of 5 and each employee must read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The purpose of this annual event is to show the importance of teamwork and increase teamwork at Seagate. For five days they go through competitive events to encourage them to work together hoping that this later can be integrated into their everyday lives. Although it is a good event Watkins has not been able to show quantative results. For that reason stakeholders are complaining about this event that costs $2 million annually. Problem Although Watkins says that there are obvious signs EcoSeagate is working there are not any quantative results to prove that it is. Therefore, the issue I see is accountability. If stockholders are not seeing a difference then that needs to be addressed. There can be several reasons as to why there are not any results. Setting a clear objective or goal is crucial to see how much progress employees are making. If Watkins is not clearly communicating what he wants as a result of the meeting then no employee will have the desire to change. There’s already an event to teach them how to reach these goals but one important thing is to monitor it. Each group has to be provided feedback and there appears to be none of that. Yes thisShow MoreRelatedBuilding Best Practice in Human Resource Management5818 Words   |  24 Pagestheir abilities. It is about creating a relationship with employees, helping to encourage and motivate them to reach their highest performance potential. There are many different HRM best practices available for organisations to implement which will increase the overall levels of organisational performance. In this project, I will discuss what human resource management is, give a brief history of human resource management, examine current literature, and from my findings, take you through some of theRead MoreHbr When Your Core Business Is Dying74686 Words   |  299 Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Saudi Aramco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Schneider National . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Seagate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Siemens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Starbucks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Read MoreIt and the Changing Social Division of Labor7927 Words   |  32 Page sand options) have to ensure customer orientation; †¢ Labor flexibility: The constant and very rapid change in production volumes is managed by an extensive use of various kinds of flexible employment. †¢ Quality management based on restricted teamwork: in most plants there is an ideology of â€Å"team orientation†, but no formal structure of work groups etc., as known from team concepts in other industries; and †¢ A heavy reliance on women and minority workers: as in most areas of electronics manufacturingRead MoreManagement Control Systems Pdf115000 Words   |  460 PagesMANAGERIAL COSTING O nl y Management Control of Operations C la s PART IV: MANAGEMENT CONTROL TOOLS s of Detailed Contents PART I: AN OVERVIEW OF MANAGEMENT CONTROL SYSTEMS Chapter 1: Introduction to Management Control Systems: Importance of Control Systems: Elements of a Control System – Nature of Management Control Systems: Important Features of Management Control Systems, Management Control Process, Characteristics of a Good Management Control System, Distinction between Strategy

Relational Leadership

Question: Describe about relational leadership. Answer: Relational leadership is a relational process where people come together for accomplishing change and make a difference for their common benefits. This philosophy values being inclusive and ethical and acknowledges the diverse talents that the group members possess for bringing about good thinking that makes the group members socially responsible and work towards their goals. The effectiveness of leadership is based on the relationships (Stephens Carmeli, 2015). This assignment will critically analyze three articles on relational leadership and produce a discussion paper based on the theoretical framework. The first article is by the authors Cunliffe Eriksen (2011) is an extended contemporary work on the theory of relational leadership. The paper is based on a dialogue between a Federal Security Director and a Researcher where the latter asks the former his opinion about leading and managing an organization. Through their dialogues, the authors have elaborately explained the theories of relational leadership and its real time application under emerging circumstances of a job situation. The dialogues present in this paper were not the action thresholds, but they were the action themselves based on the theories. The authors have presented different ways of enacting and conceptualizing leadership through this paper which is contributory to the theories of relational leadership. The second article is by Uhl-Bien (2011) where the author has considered the various perspectives of relational leadership and has thoroughly investigated the theory by creating an overarching framework. The author has experimented with various theories and models associated with relational leadership in this paper and has critically analyzed the previous works carried out in this prospect. From his investigations, the author has put forward a vital concept that investigation of the theories of relational leadership requires methodologies that are richer than the cross-sectional survey data with the usage of limited measures. This article somehow relates to the previous one in terms of its views towards the rise of leadership through the productive perspectives of the managers through the negotiations and interactions of the social order among the members of the organization. The third article is by Ospina Foldy (2010) that explored the collaborative antecedents of the perceptions of the organizations of social change. The authors carried out a qualitative study of 40 organizations in the US that are working with the marginalized communities for the identification of the leadership practices. This article particularly emphasized on the practices of relational leadership that the participants in the organizations of social change use for cultivating the connections among the divided and disparate connections. This study applied a constructionist and relational lens to the leadership empirical studies. From these articles, few unanswered questions generated which requires further discussion. What is the real time application of relational leadership apart from social change organizations? How can the information gained from these articles be incorporated into the surrounding leadership beliefs? What suitable actions can be taken with this gained knowledge on relational leadership? This is the questions that require further peer discussion and answering them will lead towards better understanding and implementation of relational leadership theories. References Cunliffe, A. L., Eriksen, M. (2011). Relational leadership.Human Relations,64(11), 1425-1449. Ospina, S., Foldy, E. (2010). Building bridges from the margins: The work of leadership in social change organizations.The Leadership Quarterly,21(2), 292-307. Stephens, J. P., Carmeli, A. (2015). Relational Leadership and Creativity: The Effects of Respectful Engagement and Caring on Meaningfulness and Creative Work Involvement. Uhl-Bien, M. (2011). Relational leadership theory: Exploring the social processes of leadership and organizing. InLeadership, gender, and organization(pp. 75-108). Springer Netherlands.

Thomas Hardys Mayor Of Casterbridges Setting Essays - British Films

Thomas Hardy's Mayor Of Casterbridge's Setting Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge does an excellent job of displaying Casterbridge's realistic Western England setting through the architectural buildings, the behavior of the townspeople, and the speech used throughout the novel. All of these aspects combined provide a particular environment Hardy called Wessex which infuses the work with reality and a life. The love which Hardy had, for architecture, is displayed throughout this novel with the descriptions of the surrounding countryside, the buildings, the commerce, the roads, and the amusements that make up the environment of Casterbridge. The town of Casterbridge in Wessex, an ancient name for the West Saxon kingdom of the Middle Ages, is no longer used geographically. It comprises of Doreshire and parts of other western England countries. The country and the town meet at a mathematical line. The town is shut in by a square wall of trees, like a plot of garden grounded by a box-edging. When overlooking Casterbridge, there are towers, gables, chimneys, and casements standing tall and strong to show the development of the buildings. The chief hotel in Casterbridge-namely, the Kings Arms, is a spacious bow-window projected into the street over the main portico. The homes of Casterbridge consist of timber homes with overhanging stories, whose small-paned lattices were screened by dimity c urtains on a drawing-string. There were other houses of brick-nogging, which derived their chief support from those adjoining. The roofs consisted of slate patched with tiles, and occasionally there was a roof of thatch. Detail to buildings of Casterbridge gives readers a visual insight to the composition to the social classes of the town. Leading onto the townspeople who keep Casterbridge alive and productive. Social classes of the townspeople determine each individuals behavior and how others treat each individual based on social class or status. The characters may seem odd to some audiences, yet these characters are at all times real. They are based on people Hardy had grown up with, people whose tragic histories had unearthed during his early architectural apprenticeship, people he had heard about in legends and ballads. The agricultural and pastoral character of the people upon whom the town depended for its existence was shown by the class of objects displayed in the shop windows. The lower-class was classified as mischievous knaves by Hardy for he personally, along with others of status, was not very fond of them. There is one obvious example in the story which displays the greed and importance of show, of the upper class. In Casterbridge's best hotel when the Mayor was having a big dinner party, the blinds were left unclosed so the whole interior of this room could be surveyed from the top of a flight of stone steps to the road-wagon office opposite, for which reason a knot of idlers had gathered there to watch what they couldn't have. The higher classes took what lavishing capabilities they had and frolicked in them for all below to envy and want. Although the behavior and mannerism of the townspeople is blunt, it is realistic and influenced by real life situations through the mind of the author. A less obvious yet realistic part of the setting which can normally be over-looked but is emphasized throughout this novel is the speech, or dialect of the characters and townspeople. Social class is very obviously shown through the speech of every individual. Higher class residents of Casterbridge often spoke much more vulgar terms. They have their own folk dialect which modernly is referred to as slang throughout regions influential on the environment of the speaker. Speech is also an issue with age and maturity which is excellently presented throughout the entire course of the novel in Elizabeth-Jane. Hardy shows the gradual change that takes place in her speech through the years. In the first portion of the novel when Elizabeth-Jane is young, she has a sense of playfulness and good times. But as she grows older and her sorrow increases. Elizabeth-Jane turns more to study and reflection. Towards the end of the novel, Elizabeth-Jane is a full grown woman who has her life establishe d and knows where she stands in social status. She is melancholy and kind. A matronly woman