Scientists discovered a strange, tall, humanoid wooden figure under four meters of peat in a Russian bog. The figure, dubbed the Shirgir Idol (after the bog where it was found), is more than twice as old as the Egyptian pyramids.

Gold miners stumbled upon pieces of the wooden figure in 1894. 100 years later, radiocarbon dating helped researchers trace the sculpture back some 9,900 years, which made it the oldest monumental sculpture in the world. The most recent analysis of the idol, published in Antiquity journal, pegged the figure at about 11,500 years old.

The idol stands at over 17 feet high, and is made out of larch wood. The surviving pieces of the idol (about 11.1 feet tall) is currently on display at the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Since its discovery, the idol has been full of surprises. A researcher illustrated five faces on the structure 20 years after its discovery, but in 2003 and 2014, other researchers discovered the sixth (an animalistic looking face) and a seventh face (concealed in the gnarled wood). Researchers speculate that the idol could be a form of spiritual art created by hunters, gatherers and fishers of Eurasia during the early Mesolithic era.

"Such a big sculpture was well visible for the hunter-gatherer community and might have been important to demonstrate their ancestry," Thomas Terberger, an archaeologist at the State Agency for Heritage Service of Lower Saxony told Livescience. "It is also possible that it was connected to specific myths and gods, but this is difficult to prove." In any case, Terberger said, it's a "miracle" that such a figure has survived for so long.

(via Livescience)

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