What is this supposed to represent? It is nine feet in length.
Is it the coma of a comet, or a plasma column, or a giant at the top of the world?
A wooden statue pulled out of a peat bog in the Urals has been dated to 11,000 years ago, according to German scientists that did the dating – see http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/n0379-revelations-on…
Don't quite understand the PR here as it is generally recognised that many wooden objects have simply not survived, and in this case, going back to the very early Holocene period. Wood rots and has a short life, no matter how fine the workmanship. Why this idol is supposed to cause a change in thinking on civilisation's origins is unclear – it doesn't change a thing. We know that Palaeolithic and Mesolithic people were clever at making things – all those stone axes carefully carved and polished are proof of the pudding. Wood does not last in the normal run of things but if they can work stone in a fairly sophisticated manner it was always very likely they could carve wood into many images that are as delightful as this example.
The idol has 8 faces (see image below which shows four sides of the face at the top and another four faces in the body) as well as all that symbolic carving
It is thought the wooden idol was placed in a marsh or watery place as an offering. Was it depicting the object that it was being offered to?
