Israel’s Antiquities Authority says archaeologists have unearthed two 9,500-year-old figurines near Jerusalem that help shed light on religion and society during the stone age, drawing parallels with similar discoveries at Gobeklitepe, a Neolithic site in Turkey that produced the world’s oldest known man-made religious structure.
Archaeologists unearthed the two rare figurines last week in Tel Motza between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv during a dig ahead of the expansion of a major highway in the area, Agence France-Presse reported the antiquities authority as saying.
One of the objects is shaped like a ram and made of limestone. The other depicts an ox and is made of dolomite. Both are 16 inches long.
