#kalata

The Shigir Idol, discovered in the peat bog of Shigir on the eastern slope of the Middle Urals, near the village of Kalata, is the oldest known wooden sculpture in the world. It was carved during the Mesolithic period, shortly after the end of the last Ice Age, making it twice as old as Egypt's Great Pyramid. The wood it was carved from is approximately 12,000 years old.

The sculpture was discovered on January 24, 1890, at a depth of 4 meters. It was extracted in ten parts and reconstituted to a height of 2.8 meters. Some researchers suggest that the original height of the statue was 5.3 meters. Unfortunately, some of these fragments were lost, so only drawings of them remain.

The initial radiocarbon dating gave an age of around 9,500 years. However, a later German analysis gave an age of 11,500 years, making it the most ancient wooden sculpture of its kind known in the world. In 2021, researchers published the results of a series of recent AMS-results dating the Idol close to the beginning of the Holocene (c. 10,000 cal BC) or about 12,000 years before present.

The Shigir Idol is a nine-foot-tall totem pole composed of ten wooden fragments carved with expressive faces, eyes, and limbs and decorated with geometric patterns. It represents the oldest known surviving work of wooden ritual art in the world. More than a century after its discovery, archaeologists continue to uncover surprises about this astonishing artifact. It is displayed in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore in Yekaterinburg, Russia. 

Nadia and Corliss have recently managed to close off a darkspawn tunnel near a small village after both an exhausting battle and even more exhausting use of explosive and destructive magic to collapse the tunnel. They normally wouldn't bother putting such effort into a small tunnel near a small village but darkspawn overrunning this village would pose a threat to Kirkwall, though Nadia thinks it'd be an improvment. She's never liked Kirkwall. She's currently dragging darkspawn corpses into a pile to burn, but she's constantly impeded in her progress by her partner trying to keep her still. She refuses though, intent on getting her work done. "Maker's breath if you don't stay still, i'm going to scream," Corliss complains, her hand glowing white with healing magic. She's trying to press her hand into a deep dash on Nadia's neck but can't do so long enough to heal the gash there, at least not enough that Nadia's insistance on moving the darkspawn doesn't reopen the wound. She's close to actually screaming to get Nadia's attention or to tying her up and forcing her to be healed. She tries walking along with her but doing so doesn't really help, so she stomps her food, crosses her arms and just lets her partner get on with her work. She doesn't approve though. "Fine. If you bleed out, don't blame me." Nadia won't blame her, but she's confident she won't bleed out. She can't let anyone near darkspawn corpses; every part of a darkspawn is toxic to the average person and just leaving them out in the open won't help anybody. She has a job to do, a life-long job, and she refuses to take any breaks when she could be working. She's sure Corliss would disagree. She puts a hurlock corpse on her shoulder for easier carrying and drags another along via its arm, eventually throwing them both on the pile of the dozen or so hurlocks, couple genlocks and a singular shriek. She can just hear Corliss asking how she plans to burn them without a pyre, so she burns more mana by starting a fire wall under the pile, which should be hot and long burning enough to make ashes of the corpses. She's glad she's finished the job but the extra effort exhausts her further; she almost faints but keeps conscious, falling backwards onto her ass and closing her eyes as light has become slightly too bright. Se can feel herself falling unconscious until a smaller hand presses against her neck, bringing her fully back into the waking world and the pain on her neck finally vanishing. "I'm going to refuse healing," Corliss starts to imitate Nadia, pretty badly, "i'm gonna just not accept healing, not gonna do this, blah blah blah, my name is Nadia and i'm so strong an-" "Alright, i get it. Sorry," Nadia says while she rubs the back of her neck in shame. She takes Corliss' hand and stands, picking her staff up at the same time and placing it into the harness on her back. She spins around on her heel to look for either horses but finds it missing, they probably balted when the cave collapsed. She groans in frustration and bites on her inner cheek to let it out. All their supplies were carried on packs on their horses, and the village they closed this tunnel for was at least a day's ride away. She rubs at her temples, really not sure what to do. Maybe the horses had decided to run back to the village, that is where they came from and where they'd call home. She reaches out for Corliss, who holds her hand and rubs her thumb over. She squeezes and keeps ahold of Corliss' hand as they walk off back toward village.