The Shigir Sculpture, or Shigir Idol (Russian: Шигирский идол), is the oldest known wooden sculpture in the world,[1][2] made during the Mesolithic period, shortly after the end of the last Ice Age.[3] The wood it was carved from is approximately 11,500 years old.[4][5] It is displayed in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore [ru] in Yekaterinburg, Russia.[6]
Discovery
The sculpture was discovered on January 24, 1894 at a depth of 4 m (13 ft) in the peat bog of Shigir,[4] on the eastern slope of the Middle Urals, approximately 100 km (62 mi) from Yekaterinburg. Investigations in this area had begun 40 years earlier, after the discovery of a variety of prehistoric objects in an open-air gold mine.
It was extracted in ten parts. Professor D. I. Lobanov combined the main fragments to reconstitute a sculpture 2.8 meters high.[7]
In 1914, archaeologist Vladimir Tolmachev [ru] proposed a variant of this reconstruction by integrating the unused fragments. His reconstruction suggested that the original height of the statue was 5.3 metres.[7]
Discovery
The sculpture was discovered on January 24, 1894 at a depth of 4 m (13 ft) in the peat bog of Shigir,[4] on the eastern slope of the Middle Urals, approximately 100 km (62 mi) from Yekaterinburg. Investigations in this area had begun 40 years earlier, after the discovery of a variety of prehistoric objects in an open-air gold mine.
It was extracted in ten parts. Professor D. I. Lobanov combined the main fragments to reconstitute a sculpture 2.8 meters high.[7]
In 1914, archaeologist Vladimir Tolmachev [ru] proposed a variant of this reconstruction by integrating the unused fragments. His reconstruction suggested that the original height of the statue was 5.3 metres.[7]
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