Shigir Idol carved from one trunk with stone adzes, chisels and beaver incisors

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Key facts

• The Shigir Idol was first discovered in 1890 at a peat bog at Shigir in Russia, where the oxygen-poor peat greatly slowed decay because wood-decaying fungi require oxygen.
• Archaeologist Vladimir Tolmachev reconstructed the idol to about 5.3 m (17.4 ft) tall, with a head at the top, a continuous flattened body with geometric carvings on both sides, and a tapered base; his version was displayed until 1914.
• Some of the pieces used in Tolmachev's reconstruction were later lost, so his drawings are the only record of the missing section.
• The surviving pieces measure approximately 3.4 m (11.2 ft); an earlier interpretation placed the statue at about 2.8 m (9.2 ft).
• 2017 reports on Mikhail Zhilin's microscopic study of tool marks showed the idol was fashioned from a single, freshly cut large trunk: polished stone adzes shaped the head and body, a fine-grained abrasive smoothed the surface, and stone chisels engraved the patterns.
• Engraved motifs include upward- and downward-facing chevrons, horizontal lines below the main face, zigzags, rhombuses and rows of dots.
• Zhilin's team proposed that beaver lower jaws with incisors still intact and sharpened were used to carve fine details such as the eyes.
• Researchers have identified eight faces: a three-dimensional face at the top plus seven more along the body, including those on the now-missing section.

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