Venus of Mierlo
Encyclopedia
The Venus of Mierlo is the nickname of a prehistoric engraving of a dancing little girl which was found at Geldrop-Mierlo
Geldrop-Mierlo
Geldrop-Mierlo is a municipality in the southern Netherlands, in the province of North Brabant. The municipality was created from the two former municipalities of Geldrop and Mierlo.-Villages:...

 in the North Brabant
North Brabant
North Brabant , sometimes called Brabant, is a province of the Netherlands, located in the south of the country, bordered by Belgium in the south, the Meuse River in the north, Limburg in the east and Zeeland in the west.- History :...

 province of Netherlands. The engravers seem to have been reindeer
Reindeer
The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...

 hunters.

The name is, of course, purely modern, as the engraving predated by many millennia the Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 religion and the goddess Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...

. There is no way of knowing what was the girl's name among those who made the engraving, and its exact cultural and religious significance is a matter of conjecture.
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