And what do the pictures mean? Svetlana Savchenko, curator of the artifact and author of the study, speculates that the eight faces may contain encrypted information about ancestral spirits, the boundary between earth and sky or a creation myth. Although the monument is unique, Dr. Savchenko sees a resemblance to the stone sculptures of what has long been considered the oldest temple in the world, Göbekli Tepe, whose ruins are in present-day Turkey, some 2,450 kilometers away. The temple stones were carved about 11,000 years ago, making them 1,500 years younger than Idol Shigir.
Marcel Niekus, an archaeologist at the Stone Age Research Foundation in the Netherlands, said that Idol Shigir’s updated and older age confirmed that he “represents a unique and unparalleled finding in Europe. One might wonder how many similar pieces have been lost over time due to poor preservation conditions. “
The similarity of geometric motifs to others across Europe at that time, he added, “is evidence of long-distance contacts and sign language shared across vast areas. The size of the idol also seems to indicate that it was intended to be a marker in the landscape that should be seen by other hunter-gatherer groups – perhaps marking the border of a territory, a warning or a welcome sign. “
Dr. Zhilin has spent much of the past 12 years investigating other bogs in the Urals. In one place, he discovered ample evidence of prehistoric carpentry – woodworking tools and a huge 11,300-year-old pine plank, which he believes has been smoothed with an adze. “There are many more unexplored swamps in the mountains,” said Zhilin. Unfortunately, there are no excavations in progress.
During a recent video conversation at his home in Moscow, Dr. Zhilin asked his interviewer in the United States: “What do you think is the most difficult thing to find in Ural Stone Age archeology?”
A break: Sites?
“No,” he said, sighing softly. “Financing.”