ABSTRACT
Pipeclay figurines of Venus may reflect Classical ideas about love and sex or provincial concepts that might relate to fertility and protection. This chapter explores religious practices and provincial beliefs associated with the 401 Venus figurines from Britain through a study of their typology, chronology, distribution, and context. This shows that although ceramic figurines were lower status objects than metal ones, they were used for many religious practices by different social groups across urban and rural populations—probably by both men and women—as well as occasionally for funerary rites closely associated with protecting often sick children by higher status foreigners.
