A Siberian fisherman netted a priceless archaeological artifact – a little statue from 2000 BCE. No word from the New York Daily News on the one that got away:
Nikolay Tarasov, 53, netted the extraordinary 4,000-year-old figurine while fishing in his hometown of Tisul, in Russia’s Kemerovo region.
The small object got tangled in his net and Tarasov was getting ready to chuck it back into the river when he glanced down to take another look.
That’s when he saw a face staring back up at him.
“I stopped and washed the thing in the river and realized it wasn’t a stone of an unusual shape, as I thought earlier, but a statuette,” the man told the Siberian Times.
…
Tisul’s History Museum was stunned when Tarasov brought them the find. Experts said it was made out of horn that has fossilized. They have dated it to the Bronze Age and believe it may have belonged to the Okunev or Samus cultures, a group of people thought to have inhabited Tisul in ancient times.
“Quite likely, it shows a pagan god. The only things we have dated approximately to the same age are a stone necklace and two charms in the shapes of a bear and a bird,” said museum director Marina Banschikova.
Photo at the link.