[meteorite-list] moldavites still in Willendorf collection

From: Marco Langbroek <marco.langbroek_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:01:35 2004
Message-ID: <004601c21e0e$78ffca40$21e481d4_at_latitude>

Hi Herbert, Jeannie and list,

Following a talk with Alexander (my colleague, who did his PhD on Venus
figurines from the central European Gravettian) yesterday, he went back to
his notes from 1997, when he went through the Willendorf artefact
collection. His notes make clear that there still are seven fragments of
Moldavite present in the Willendorf collection at the Museum in Vienna
today: 6 labelled as coming from from level 9, and one from level 7. Those
are similar numbers of moldavites as reported back in 1918 by Bayer. So
while the 1988 paper on 'Moldavites in Austria' states that the Willendorf
Moldavites were lost, this clearly is not the case. They are still present,
at least as recently as 1997 when Alexander examined them in person. And the
one which according to the 1988 paper popped up in a US private collection,
therefore appears to be not one of the Moldavites from Willendorf, I would
suggest.

As an additional note, Alexander told me it are fragments indeed: not clear
worked artefacts.

One of the interesting things about these moldavite fragments in the
Willendorf collection, is that Willendorf is not within the actual
occurrence area of Moldavites. Yet, it has moldavite fragments. This while
none of the Gravettian sites in Czechia or Slovakia within the areas where
moldavites are found, has moldavites among the site assemblage.

cheers!

- Marco
Received on Thu 27 Jun 2002 02:20:38 PM PDT