A team of German scientists is closer to dating, and possibly "decoding" the cryptic Shigir Idol, a human-headed obelisk-like monument found in a western Siberian peat bog in 1890. Hewn from larch planks and covered in geometric designs and seven carved faces, the find is thought to be 9,500 years old.

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It is the markings that have intrigued archaeologists most. Svetlana Savchenko, chief keeper of Shigir Idol at the Yekaterinburg History Museum and Mikhail Zhilin, leading researcher of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Archaeology, believes they represent a "code" interpreting the natural world, and are the sole remnant of the Middle Stone Age culture that created the idol. 

"It is obvious that the elements of geometrical ornament had some meaning," said Savchenko and Zhilin to the Siberian Times. 

While most scientists agree the series of lines nearest the head represents the rib cage, the carvings take on more symbolic meanings further down the body. A straight line could denote land or the horizon, ritualistically representing the boundary between earth and sky, water and sky, or the border between the worlds of the living and the dead. 

"A wavy line or zigzag symbolized the watery element, snake, lizard, or determined a certain border. In addition, the zigzag signaled danger, like a pike," continued Savchenko. "A cross, rhombus, square, or circle depicted the fire or the sun, and so on."

The familiar school lesson that civilization began some 5,000 years ago along the banks of the Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, Indus, and Yellow rivers is increasingly becoming an antiquated notion. Archaeological finds across Eurasia prove sophisticated cultures extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific at the same time or earlier. 

Ubar, a civilization in modern-day Oman, was concurrent with Mesopotamia; the site of Stonehenge was being ritually used by around 8,000 BC; Gobelki Tepe, a temple complex in southern Turkey is 11,000 years old and predates the domestication of animals and grain.

Curiously, the Shigir Idol does not seem to have been embedded in the ground or fastened to a foundation, leading authorities to theorize the monument leaned against something, either a tree or structure.

Lack of funding had prevented precise dating of the Shigir Idol, revered as one of Russia's great archaeological treasures. Its postulated age of 9,500 years, however, would make it twice the age of the Pyramids at Giza.

TagsShigir Idol, Siberia, Archaeology, Russia