2014-12-22 Saint Germain-en-Laye, Musée-archeologie Nationale, Yvelines, Île-de-France

Saint-Germain-en-Laye is a French commune located twenty kilometers west of Paris in the department of Yvelines and the region Île-de-France.
The town of Saint-Germain-en-Laye had its history regarding the presence of the castle, which is a regular residence of the kings of France, which dropped its importance, however, due to the installation of Louis XIV at Versailles, and the woods, the former royal hunting estate. At the beginning of the xxi century it was the seat of a sub-prefecture of the Yvelines and became a residential town sought international character marked. Its inhabitants are called Saint-Germanois or St. Germinois or Sangermanois.

National Museum of Archaeology: the National Museum housed in the castle has about 30,000 archaeological objects, making it one of the richest collections in Europe. These objects are divided into seven collections, ranging from the origin of the Prehistory (Paleolithic) to the Merovingian (viii th century). It includes the famous Venus of Brassempouy, one of the oldest images of realistic human face carved in the Upper Paleolithic in the ivory of mammoth. This museum is experiencing a certain onvrede.Het annual number of visitors is 66,000 of which 45,000 free tickets, including school (2005 figures 106).
Mammoth ivory
ORIGIN AND DATE:
Cave of the Pope (Brassempouy, Landes)
Around 21,000 years BC
ARTIST (S):
anonymous
DIMENSIONS:
Height: 3.65 cm
The Lady and the hood or Lady of Brassempouy is the most famous and most moving of prehistoric art because it brings us the most real and most vibrant picture of the Paleolithic woman.

The technical development of this statuette is very complex and give it great visual qualities: the incision to the grid and facial features, the perforation to the pupil of the eyes, grinding and polishing to the contours of the face.

This first human face, carved into the nucleus of a mammoth tusk, is quite striking. It is subtriangular and well balanced shape. Forehead, eyebrows, nose and chin are highlighted. It sees the pupil of the eyes, especially the right.
The representation of the face is quite exceptional. This head does not seem to be an individual portrait, but rather a symbolic image of the woman.

The female figures are much more numerous than men. Indeed, dozens of female statuettes called Venus, were found in all of Europe. Artists have carved them in stone or ivory, between 25,000 and 20,000 BC

The Lady and the hood or Lady of Brassempouy is the most famous and most moving of prehistoric art because it brings us the most real and most vibrant picture of the Paleolithic woman.
- See more at:
musee archeologienationale.fr/objet/la-dame-la-capuche

These women are all figured nude, while the climate of that time was to require everyone to be dressed warmly. These representations are either slender or plump. The details of the faces are exceptionally represented, but none has mouths. Dress or clothing items sometimes adorn the Venus. The legs can be reduced to an appendage which suggests that some of these statuettes were perhaps intended to be driven into the ground. Caves retain their rock carvings of female profiles. Carvings reliefs and engravings also testify to this feminine symbolism. The woman is sometimes mentioned as his pubic triangle with its base, the vulva.
The hair falls from both sides of the neck, without reaching the shoulders. Eight other statuettes, whole or fragmented, have been unearthed in the cave of the Pope. All are kept at the National Museum of Antiquities and are part of the famous Piette collection.

Queen Arnegunde
If we are to believe the chronicler Gregory of Tours, Queen Frankish Ingonde, wife of the Merovingian king Clotaire I, requesting the latter to find a husband worthy of her younger sister Arnegunde, the king found better claiming that it -even and decided to marry his own sister. This marriage certainly proscribed by the ecclesiastical canons, however, was consistent with polygamous and endogamous principles in effect in the Germanic royal families. Arnegunde therefore reached the rank of legitimate queen and also appears as regina (that is to say, queen or princess in the broad sense of the term) in the work of Gregory of Tours, like the other Clotaire women.
Her tomb was discovered in 1959 in the sarcophagus number 49 in the Saint-Denis basilica by Michel Fleury, palaeographer archivist. It contained preserved clothes and jewelry, including its registered ring (signet ring bearing the name ARNEGVNDIS and a central monogram read as REGINE, now kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. This is the grave best documented from Europe to the High Middle Age.
The date of his death is not known by texts, archaeological analysis of the tomb was first issued two assumptions. Thus, according to Michel Fleury, based on an analysis of the state of the skeleton, she would have died between 565 and 570 (at the age of about 50 years hence). However, studies of the grave goods, especially clothing items have been conducted more recently by Patrick Perin, Director of National Antiquities Museum. These analyzes now suggest that death must be dated between 572 and 583; Indeed, the style of some parts of the queen costume does not appear in the Merovingian world before the seventh century. Michel Fleury gives the following description: "a woman very small, aged about forty-five years, the blonde hair, the pretty round skull, the lower jaw fairly prominent, but the chin deleted". The latest research, in particular the analysis of his teeth give death to 60 years when she was very osteoarthritis. It measured 1.55 m4, had polio sequelae of childhood in the right leg (she would have suffered at the age of 4 years as suggested by a first tooth stress) and disease signs forestry probably because of a strong diabetes, dental stress due to difficile2 delivery (at the age of 18, which is late for the time since the wedding can be from 12 years) .
She was wearing a Chinese silk coat purple complexion that indicated his royal rank, a silk veil yellow and red motifs (red murex and madder), leather shoes red kid and jewelery (plate- buckle, brooch and pin) in gold and silver adorned with garnets from India, Ceylon, Bohemia and Portugal5. She was wearing a suit and inspired by the Byzantine style. WP