#The Shigir Idol

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The Shigir Idol, discovered in the peat bog of Shigir on the eastern slope of the Middle Urals, near the village of Kalata, is the oldest known wooden sculpture in the world. It was carved during the Mesolithic period, shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, making it twice as old as Egypt's Great Pyramid. The wood it was carved from is approximately 12,000 years old.

The sculpture was discovered on January 24, 1890, at a depth of 4 meters. It was extracted in ten parts and reconstituted to a height of 2.8 meters. Some researchers suggest that the original height of the statue was 5.3 meters. Unfortunately, some of these fragments were lost, so only drawings of them remain.

The initial radiocarbon dating gave an age of around 9,500 years. However, a later German analysis gave an age of 11,500 years, making it the most ancient wooden sculpture of its kind known in the world. In 2021, researchers published the results of a series of recent AMS-results dating the Idol close to the beginning of the Holocene (c. 10,000 cal BC) or about 12,000 years before present.

The Shigir Idol is a nine-foot-tall totem pole composed of ten wooden fragments carved with expressive faces, eyes, and limbs and decorated with geometric patterns. It represents the oldest known surviving work of wooden ritual art in the world. More than a century after its discovery, archaeologists continue to uncover surprises about this astonishing artifact. It is displayed in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore in Yekaterinburg, Russia. 

- Source: Pagan Trader ThePaganTrader.com

[victusinveritas]

Discovered in Russia in 1890, the Shigir Idol is one of the oldest known wooden sculptures, dating to approximately 12,000 years ago. It was found in a peat bog, which had preserved it.

The sculpture is 2.8 metres high, but its original height is thought to have been 5 metres or more. It was carved from a larch tree (approximately 159 years old at the time) using the jaws of a beaver and stone tools. On it are faces, hands, and zigzag lines.

It was apparently placed upright next to a lake before it fell into the bog, thus preserving it for over 12,000 years.

According to Thomas Terberger, a scholar of prehistory at Göttingen University in Germany:

“The idol was carved during an era of great climate change, when early forests were spreading across a warmer late glacial to postglacial Eurasia. The landscape changed, and the art—figurative designs and naturalistic animals painted in caves and carved in rock—did, too, perhaps as a way to help people come to grips with the challenging environments they encountered.”

It is currently on display in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore in Russia.

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Picture Credits: Siberian Times

[ignorethisatyourperil]

Discovered in Russia in 1890, the Shigir Idol is one of the oldest known wooden sculptures, dating to approximately 12,000 years ago. It was found in a peat bog, which had preserved it.

The sculpture is 2.8 metres high, but its original height is thought to have been 5 metres or more. It was carved from a larch tree (approximately 159 years old at the time) using the jaw of a beaver and stone tools. On it are faces, hands, and zigzag lines. No one knows what it was used for, but some say it could have been a territorial or navigational marker, or perhaps it depicts forest spirits or had some ritual purpose. Some have suggested that it depicts a creation myth.

The sculpture might have been placed upright next to an ancient lake before it fell into the bog, thus preserving it for over 12,000 years.

According to Thomas Terberger, a scholar of prehistory at Göttingen University in Germany:

“The idol was carved during an era of great climate change, when early forests were spreading across a warmer late glacial to postglacial Eurasia. The landscape changed, and the art—figurative designs and naturalistic animals painted in caves and carved in rock—did, too, perhaps as a way to help people come to grips with the challenging environments they encountered.”

This sculpture was carved about ten thousand years before the city of London was founded and is over twice the age of Stonehenge. A truly ancient artifact.

It is currently on display in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore in Russia.

Picture Credits: Siberian Times

[thepastisalreadywritten]

The Shigir Sculpture is the oldest known wooden sculpture in the world. It was made during the Mesolithic period, shortly after the end of the last Ice Age.

The wood it was carved from is around 11,500 years old.

Its ancient creators carved the work from a single larch tree with 159 growth rings, the authors write in the study.

Gold prospectors first discovered the so-called Shigir Idol at the bottom of a peat bog in Russia’s Ural mountain range in 1890.

The unique object — a nine-foot-tall totem pole composed of ten wooden fragments carved with expressive faces, eyes and limbs and decorated with geometric patterns — represents the oldest known surviving work of wooden ritual art in the world.

[fiercefauna]

First attempt at a day scene with the little blue lady. This odd angle mostly resulted from the fact I didn't know what to color the sky.

The tall dudes are based on the Shigir Idol, one of many ancient artifacts I'm obsessed with.

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This Wooden Sculpture Is Twice as Old as Stonehenge and the Pyramids | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine

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The oldest known wood carved sculpture in the world, the Shigir idol, was carved by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in today’s Russia some 11000 years ago. Found in 1890, on a depth of 4 meters in a peat bog in Shigir, Middle Urals.

Drawings by: Vladimir Tolmachev

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Discovered in 1890, the Shigir Idol is one of the oldest known wooden sculptures, dating to approximately 12,000 years ago

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The Shigir Idol

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12,100 larch tree wood sculpture years old found in Russia's Ural Mountains

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i made the shigir idol

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The 11,500 year old Shigir Idol, discovered in the peat bog of Shigir in the Middle Ural Mountains near Kalata, Russia.

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The Shigir Idol

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Shigir Idol: World's oldest wood sculpture has mysterious carved faces and once stood 17 feet tall

Live Science By Jennifer NalewickiJune 7, 2024  Name: Shigir Idol What it is: The world’s oldest known wooden sculpture Where it was found: At the bottom of a peat bog in Russia’s Ural Mountains in 1894 When it was made: The towering sculpture was carved 12,100 years ago from the trunk of a larch (Larix) tree, making it more than twice as old as the Egyptian pyramids. Read more…

[archaeologyprehistoricstones]

Retiree Uncovers Wooden Artifact 2,000 Years Older Than Stonehenge

Markings on the timber may help piece together lost European history

Precious little is known about the Neolithic era in Britain—a problem most prominently exemplified by Stonehenge. Theories abound as to the origins of the 5,000-year-old structure, ranging from religious rituals to alien communication. The Neolithic people of Britain left behind no written records for archaeologists to pore over for clues.

But sometimes clues can come from unexpected places, as retired surgeon Derek Fawcett discovered four years ago. While digging a foundation for a workshop on his property in West Berkshire, 50 miles west of London, he uncovered a wood fragment, about three feet long, preserved in peat since Neolithic times.

“It was a rather surprising find at the bottom of a trench dug for foundations for a new building. It was clearly very old and appeared well preserved in peat. After hosing it down, we saw that it had markings that appeared unnatural and possibly man-made,” Fawcett says in a recent statement from Historic England, the government agency that coordinated the research on the artifact.

The Nottingham Tree-ring Dating Laboratory and the Center for Isotope Research at the University of Groningen worked in tandem to date the wood, which they placed at somewhere between 4640 to 4605 B.C.E. with 95 percent confidence.

Lab work

Judith Dobie, an archaeological illustrator at Historic England, tracing the markings on the artifact in 2020 Historic England

That means that this artifact predates Stonehenge by about 2,000 years—the oldest wood carving ever discovered in England. David Keys of the Independent reports that excavations around Stonehenge in the 1960s led to a theory that “giant totem-pole-like timber obelisks” were erected on the spot before the current stones.

If such wood obelisks ever existed, this new find could indicate what they were like, writes Keys.

This artifact also bears resemblance to the former oldest wood carving found in Britain, a wooden post unearthed in south Wales in 2012.

Historic England also noted that the wood carries similar, possibly related, decoration to the Shigir Idol. First found by gold miners in the Ural Mountains of Russia in 1890, the Shigir Idol has been dated to 12,500 years ago, making it the oldest example of carved wood found anywhere.

In 2021, when a new round of dating revealed that true age of the Shigir Idol, the New York Times’ Franz Lidz reported that the decorations on the Shigir Idol in turn resemble those on Göbekli Tepe, an 11,000-year-old temple in modern-day Turkey.

Marcel Niekus, an archaeologist in the Netherlands with the Foundation for Stone Age Research, told the Times that the similarities between the Shigir Idol and Göbekli Tepe could help piece together the story of human migration spanning thousands of years of Neolithic history.

Illustration

Archaeological illustration showing intentional cut marks Historic England / Judith Dobie

The geometric motifs that repeat across Europe in that period serve as "is evidence of long-distance contacts and a shared sign language over vast areas,” Niekus said.

And according to Historic England, the small, unassuming wooden artifact from West Berkshire could be the latest turn in that story.

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By Christopher Parker

Christopher Parker is a journalist covering history, conservation, education and other topics. His work has been featured in America magazine, Notre Dame magazine, the Los Angeles Times and the Berkshire Eagle.

© 2023 Smithsonian Magazine

Source: Smithsonian Magazine

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