{"id":12132,"date":"2021-03-25T09:46:43","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T15:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12132"},"modified":"2021-03-25T09:57:12","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T15:57:12","slug":"ancient-idol-is-older-than-they-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12132","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Idol Is Older than They Thought"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Head

Head of the Shigir Idol, the world’s oldest wood sculpture, discovered in a Russian peat bog in 1890. Photo courtesy of the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Shirgir Idol, a wooden statue that you may see at the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore<\/a> has now been re-dated, pushing its age back to 12,500 years before present.\u00a0 In North American terms, that is about the time of the “Clovis culture,<\/a>” when hunters with big spearpoints pursued big animals that no longer exist.<\/p>\n

According to an article on the Artnet website, the statue was first dated as 9,500 years old.<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2018, more advanced accelerator mass spectrometry technology testing the pristine core of the larch wood statue\u2014rather than the surface, which had undergone numerous conservation treatments over the more than 100 years since its discovery\u2014determined that it was actually even older: closer to 11,600 years old.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, a new study published in\u00a0Quaternary International<\/a><\/em> has pushed that date back by a further<\/em> 900 years\u2014making it more than twice as old as Stonehenge or the Egyptian pyramids.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idol is nine feet tall, made of wood, with humanoid faces and geometric markings. It survived because it was in a peat bog, where gold miners found it in 1890s. There might be others still unfound.<\/p>\n

In regions with large forests, wood would have been readily available to Paleolithic artists, but quick to deteriorate over the centuries. That means that our understanding of these ancient peoples is shaped by preservation biases, and might have been very different had more wooden artifacts like the Shigir Idol survived.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n

\u201cWood working was probably widespread during the Late Glacial to early Holocene,\u201d the paper argues. \u201cWe see the Shigir sculpture as a document of a complex symbolic behavior and of the spiritual world of the Late Glacial to Early Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of the Urals.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To be fair, as British historian Francis Young pointed out on Twitter<\/a>, “And even if\u00a0 [the Shengir idol and similar] did serve a religious purposes, are they gods or ancestors? Was there a distinction? I rather doubt it. We certainly can’t impose our Classically-derived<\/span> assumptions about gods with distinct personalities and names, etc.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Shirgir Idol, a wooden statue that you may see at the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore has now been re-dated, pushing its age back to 12,500 years before present.\u00a0 In North American terms, that is about the time of the “Clovis culture,” when hunters with big spearpoints pursued big animals that no longer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,164,5,53],"class_list":["post-12132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-idolatry","tag-paganism","tag-russia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-39G","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6822,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6822","url_meta":{"origin":12132,"position":0},"title":"Egypt Has the Pyramids; Siberia has the Shigir Idol","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Why the comparison between countless tons of quarried stone and \"the oldest wooden statue in the world,\" estimated at 9,500 years before present? In each case, there are those who believe that the structures (particularly the Great Pyramid) and the sculpture from the Ural Mountains contain secret codes. The tall\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/siberiantimes.com\/PICTURES\/SCIENCE\/Shigir-Idol-october-22-2014\/inside%20face%20left.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3475,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3475","url_meta":{"origin":12132,"position":1},"title":"The I-word: Idolatry","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Two years ago at the American Academy of Religion, we had a Pagan Studies session with \"idolatry\" in the title. Sessions are described by posters on easels outside the meeting rooms, and I heard a few snickers from people passing in the corridor. Inside the room, people were talking about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":899,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=899","url_meta":{"origin":12132,"position":2},"title":"The Street of the Idol-Makers","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Last Monday I drove to Denver for the last day of the International New Age Trade Show (West) at the Merchandise Mart, partly to see friends and also to check out the Books, New Age and World Music, CD's and DVD's, Aromatherapy Bath and Body Preparations, Apparel, Candles, Crystals, Tarots\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":291,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=291","url_meta":{"origin":12132,"position":3},"title":"Idol-worshiping Episcopalians Christianity Today reacts\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 26, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Idol-worshiping Episcopalians Christianity Today reacts to Pagan aspects of an Episcopal Church experiment with women's liturgy. Other conservative Christian bloggers chime in: check out the \"comments\" section of this blog. The ordination of women led to \"sexual narcissism,\" you see. It's been a long time--like 40 or 50 years--since the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":70,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=70","url_meta":{"origin":12132,"position":4},"title":"Idol Thoughts","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 27, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"After three days of hearing papers and networking at AAR-SBL, our brains were full, so half a dozen friends and I headed for the traveling Etruscan exhibit at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum. It was wonderful to get away from the convention-hotel district. The exhibit on ancient Etruscan life was organized by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4856,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4856","url_meta":{"origin":12132,"position":5},"title":"Pentagram Pizza: Eat It Back in the Cave","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 You knew this was coming: the zombie Tarot deck. \u2022 On cave paintings, art, and cognition. \u2022 More old stuff: were those ancient figurines of voluptuous women goddesses . . . or toys? Don't suggest the latter to the idol-makers of today. \u2022 Have beautiful handwriting by Christmas. You\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"pentagram pizza\"","block_context":{"text":"pentagram pizza","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=pentagram-pizza"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/pentagrampizza1-126x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12132"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12138,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12132\/revisions\/12138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}