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archaeologist in Kuwait have discovered a 7,000 - class - old clay statuette that looks eerily similar to a modern - daydepiction of an foreigner .
But while this figurine may calculate more supernatural than human , its expressive style was common in ancientMesopotamia , although it ’s the first of its kind ever to be recover in Kuwait or the Arabian Gulf .
The clay head unearthed at Bahra 1 in northern Kuwait dates back nearly 7,000 years.
The small , fine craft head word , with coloured optic , a flat nose and an elongated skull , was found during archeological site this year atBahra 1 , a prehistorical site in northern Kuwait where a joint Kuwaiti - Polish squad has been excavate since 2009 . Bahra 1 was one of the Arabian Peninsula ’s oldest settlements , with occupation lasting from around 5500 to 4900 B.C.
During this time , Bahra 1 was root by the Ubaid , a culture that originated in Mesopotamia and is know for its distinctive pottery , including its foreign - like statuette . The Ubaid interlace with Neolithic , orNew Stone Age societies in the Arabian Gulfin the sixth millennium B.C. and turned the area into a variety of ancient thaw pot , saidAgnieszka Szymczak , an sashay loss leader at Bahra 1 in guardianship of the small finds at the site , like the new learn statuette .
The hit of these peoples and their cultures lead in a " prehistorical hamlet of cultural exchange , " Szymczak , an archeologist at the University of Warsaw ’s Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology , told Live Science in an electronic mail . Part of this rally included graphics , like the of late unearth figurine .
A “lizard-headed” female figurine nursing a child dating to the Ubaid period, circa 4000 B.C., from Ur, Iraq in the Iraq Museum.
Related : chunky flint figurine may be some of the earliest depiction of real mass
" [ The ] discovery of the statuette was a entire surprise for the whole squad , as it was the first such find not just among the over 1.5k [ 1,500 ] small find excavated from the Bahra 1 site but also from the Arabian Gulf region , " Szymczak pronounce . Moreover , it ’s made of Mesopotamian Lucius Clay , not like the " Coarse Red Ware " ceramic local to the Arabian Gulf , meaning the Ubaids were actively importing their homegrown traditions into the area .
Ubaid figurine are sometimes call " lounge lizard - channelise , " " bird - like , " or " ophidian " mean " snake - like , " according to University of Chicagopublications . The newfound figurine is likely " interpenetrate with emblematical signification , " Szymczak say , even though the figurine was strike in a " mundane activity area , " not in a exceptional or symbolic shoes — like the graves they ’ve been ground in throughout Mesopotamia .
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Aurelie Daems , a Near Eastern archeologist at Ghent University in Belgium who has writtenbook chapterson Ubaid ophidian figurines but was not involve in the current written report , praised the find at Bahra 1 as having the " potential to clear up research doubtfulness related to ritual and societal praxis " of the Ubaid , as well as the relationship between the prehistoric Gulf neighborhood and Mesopotamia .
Various theories have assay to explain the unusual facial features of these figurines . One mind suggests the sculptures show stilted cranial deformation , otherwise known as " point - defining , " a praxis followed in Ubaid society , andevidenced in skeletal remainsexcavated in Mesopotamia . Achieved by twine patch around an infant ’s malleable skull , head - defining could have been utilized by the Ubaids as a symbolization of personal identity , such as class , culture or belong to a special group within their colonisation . The Ubaid may have picked up thispracticein what is now Iran in the eighth and seventh millennia B.C. , and forefront - shaping hit its pinnacle in Ubaid society during the fifth millenary B.C.
Excavations at the site are ongoing , as are studies on the stiff figurine head set up this yr .
