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Honestly, I'm doing everyone a favour by censoring the actual title because it's a doozey.
An 11,000-year-old rock-cut relief in southeastern Turkey featuring menacing animals and two men, one of whom is holding his genitalia, is the oldest narrative scene on record, a new study suggests.
Archaeologists discovered the curious carvings on built-in benches within a Neolithic (or New Stone Age) building in the Urfa region. Measuring roughly 2.5 to 3 feet (0.7 to 0.9 meter) tall and 12 feet (3.7 m) long, the newly discovered rock-cut relief showcases two leopards, a bull and the two men — one grasping his phallus and the other holding a rattle or snake.
Whoever carved the wild creatures accentuated their dangerous, pointy parts — the leopards' teeth and the bulls' horns. But exactly what this narrative was meant to convey is lost to time, according to the study, which was published Thursday (Dec. 8) in the journal Antiquity(opens in new tab).
Man holding p**is and flanked by leopards is world's oldest narrative carving
An 11,000-year-old rock-cut relief in southeastern Turkey featuring menacing animals and two men, one of whom is holding his genitalia, is the oldest narrative scene on record, a new study suggests.
Archaeologists discovered the curious carvings on built-in benches within a Neolithic (or New Stone Age) building in the Urfa region. Measuring roughly 2.5 to 3 feet (0.7 to 0.9 meter) tall and 12 feet (3.7 m) long, the newly discovered rock-cut relief showcases two leopards, a bull and the two men — one grasping his phallus and the other holding a rattle or snake.
Whoever carved the wild creatures accentuated their dangerous, pointy parts — the leopards' teeth and the bulls' horns. But exactly what this narrative was meant to convey is lost to time, according to the study, which was published Thursday (Dec. 8) in the journal Antiquity(opens in new tab).