As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Sunday 19 March 2017

7,000-year-old bird-like statuette goes on display in Athens




Reuters Published Feb 14, 2017 06:53am 

ATHENS: A bird-like statuette dating back 7,000 years has mystified archaeologists in Greece who still do not know exactly what it is, or where it came from.

The “7,000-year-old enigma,” as it has been dubbed by the National Archaeological Museum, has been put on display until March 26 after being brought from the museum’s storerooms.

It is the latest item to be presented under the title “The Unseen Museum” - a reference to the roughly 200,000 antiquities from statues to gold jewellry and every-day objects in store and not on daily display.

Carved out of granite, the 36 cm (14 inches) “enigma” statuette of the late Neolithic era has a pointed nose and long neck leading to a markedly round belly, flat back and cylindrical stumpy legs.

“It could depict a human-like figure with a bird-like face, or a bird-like entity which has nothing to do with man but with the ideology and symbolism of the Neolithic society,” Katya Manteli, an archaeologist with the museum, said.

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