A 7000-year-old alien-like statuette was a "complete surprise" for archaeologists in Kuwait. Photo

Archaeologists in Kuwait have discovered a 7,000-year-old clay figurine that resembles modern images of aliens. The discovery was a "complete surprise" for scientists.

The clay head from the sixth millennium BC is the first to be found in Kuwait or the Persian Gulf. However, similar artifacts have already been discovered in ancient Mesopotamia, LiveScience reports.

A small clay head with slanted eyes, a flat nose, and an elongated skull was found during excavations at Bahra 1, a prehistoric site in northern Kuwait where a joint Kuwaiti-Polish team has been excavating since 2009.

According to historical data, Bahra 1 was one of the oldest settlements in the Arabian Peninsula, lasting from about 5500 to 4900 B.C. During this time, Bahra 1 was inhabited by the Ubaid, a culture originating in Mesopotamia and known for its distinctive ceramics, including alien-like figures, historians say.

Agnieszka Szymczak, the head of the excavations and an archaeologist at the Polish Center for Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw, said that the Ubaid intertwined with Neolithic or New Stone societies in the Persian Gulf in the sixth millennium BC.

The collision of these peoples and their cultures led to a "prehistoric crossroads of cultural exchange," Szymczak added. Part of this exchange included art, including the unearthed figurine.

"The discovery of the figurine was a complete surprise for the entire team, as it was the first such find not only among the more than 1,500 small artifacts excavated at Bahra-1, but also in the Persian Gulf region," the archaeologist emphasized.

In addition, this figurine is made of Mesopotamian clay, not the "coarse red pottery" typical of the Persian Gulf. This means that the Ubeids actively imported their traditions to the region, researchers say.

Agnieszka Szymczak added that the newly found statuette is probably "full of symbolic meaning," although it was found in the "earthly area of activity" and not in a special or symbolic place - as in the graves where previous figures were found in Mesopotamia.

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