Russian artifact is estimated to be 11,000 years old, say scientists -- 6,000 yrs older than Stonehenge

A wooden statue already believed to be one of the oldest known man-made objects in the world has been proven by scientists to be even more ancient than previously thought.

According to the Mirror, German scientists have tested the Shigir Idol -- a wooden statue that was found in a peat bog in the Urals in 1890 -- and found that it is approximately 11,000 years old, 1,500 years older than previously believed.

The new findings would mean that the tall, curved obelisk is twice as old as Egypt's Great Pyramids and 6,000 years older than Stonehenge.

Some Russians are angry that the German team removed a sample of the statue to test its age. Officials from the country's Ministry of Culture have launched a criminal case against the research team, accusing them of damaging one of the world's oldest statues.

Nonetheless, the revelation about the statue's age has left many stunned.

A source at Sverdlovsk Regional History Museum told the Mirror, "The results [from the research] were astonishing, as samples from inside parts of the Idol showed its age as 11,000 calendar years, to the very beginning of the Holocene epoch. We also learned that the sculpture was made from a larch which was at least 157 years old."

"Clear cuts on the tree trunk leave no doubts that the Idol was made from a freshly cut tree, by stone tools."