page_title: Shigir Idol
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Shigir Idol / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: The Shigir Idol, the most ancient wooden sculpture in the world
context_page_description: The Shigir Sculpture, or Shigir Idol, is the oldest known wooden sculpture in the world, made during the Mesolithic period, shortly after the end of the last Ice Age. The wood it was carved from is approximately 11,500 years old.
  It is displayed in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
context_section_description: The sculpture is carved from larch. As identified from the annual rings, the tree was at least 159 years old. Stone tools were used for carving the markings. The top portion is a head with a face with eyes, nose, and mouth. The body is flat and rectangular. Geometrical motifs decorate its surface, including zigzag lines and depictions of human faces and hands. Horizontal lines at the level of the thorax may represent ribs, and lines broken in chevrons cover the rest of what often is described as the body; however, along with the face at the top, several faces are visible at various points along the sculpture. The arrangement resembles a totem pole.
  Scholars have proposed various theories about the carvings' meaning. Svetlana Savchenko, a researcher at the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum, suggested that the decoration tells the creation myth those who carved it believed in. Other researchers at the museum have suggested that the markings could have served as a navigational aid or map. Professor Mikhail Zhilin, an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology in Moscow, guessed that the statue could depict mythological creatures such as forest spirits. Archeologist Peter Vang Peterson, of the National Museum of Denmark, speculated that the idol could serve as a warning not to enter a dangerous area.
  Scholars noted that the Shigir Idol's decoration was similar to that of the oldest known monumental stone ruins, at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey.
  The ornamentation on the sculpture was carved using three different sizes of chisels. In addition, following his 2014 examination of the sculpture, Professor Zhilin discovered another face in the sculpture and asserted that the faces were carved last of all, using tools made from the lower jaw bones of a beaver, with sharpened incisor teeth. A beaver jaw tool from the same period was found at the Beregovaya 2 site.
  The discovery upended scholars' views on when humans began making ritual art, as opposed to the kind of realistic art seen in the Lascaux caves. Scientists had previously believed that complex art comparable to the Shigir Idol began in sedentary farming populations in the Middle East around 8,000 years ago.
caption: Some of the lower faces on the sculpture are visible in this image
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