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Crimson Jester @OGCrimsonJester on x 3290 followers
Created: 2025-07-25 21:14:38 UTC
The Shigir Idol is the oldest known wooden sculpture in the world, carved around XXXXXX years ago during the early Holocene period, making it more than twice as old as Egypt’s Great Pyramid and over XXXXX years older than Stonehenge. Discovered in 1890 in a peat bog near Kirovgrad in Russia’s Ural Mountains, it was found at a depth of X meters, preserved by the bog’s acidic, anaerobic environment.
Crafted from a single larch tree at least XXX years old, the idol originally stood about XXX meters (51.8 ft) tall, though only XXX meters (9.1 ft) remain due to losses during 20th-century upheavals. Its surface is adorned with geometric patterns—zigzags, chevrons, and lines—along with eight human faces, including one at the top with a wide-open mouth, giving it an eerie, commanding presence. The carvings were made using stone tools and possibly beaver teeth.
The idol’s meaning remains a mystery. Theories suggest it could encode a creation myth, serve as a navigational map, depict forest spirits, or act as a warning marker. Some researchers propose the markings contain a coded message, potentially one of the earliest forms of symbolic communication. Its complex iconography challenges assumptions that hunter-gatherers of the time lacked sophisticated symbolic thinking, reshaping views on the origins of ritual art.
Initially dated to XXXXX years in 1997, skepticism led to more precise accelerator mass spectrometry in 2014, confirming its age as approximately 11,600–12,500 years old. It’s now housed in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore in Yekaterinburg, Russia, displayed in a glass case to protect it.
The Shigir Idol’s discovery suggests that advanced artistic expression existed among hunter-gatherers far earlier than previously thought, prompting a reevaluation of prehistoric cultural development.
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Related Topics bog stonehenge pyramid