Ain Ghazal Statues

The statues were discovered in 1983 at the archaeological site of Ain Ghazal, located near Amman, Jordan. They were found carefully buried in pits beneath the floors of abandoned Neolithic houses.

Radiocarbon dating places the creation of these plaster statues between roughly 7200 BC and 6250 BC. This makes them among the earliest large-scale human representations ever discovered in history.

The figures were built using plaster made from crushed and burnt limestone, shaped over a core of reeds and twine. Traces of black bitumen were also applied to detail the eyes, giving them a striking, lifelike appearance.

The recovered statues are distributed among a few different institutions, with the majority housed at the Jordan Museum in Amman. Some pieces are also displayed in the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris.