Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: What is the oldest surviving example of sculpture?
The Löwenmensch figurine from the Swabian Alps in Germany is the oldest known statue in the world, and dates to 30,000-40,000 years ago.[6][7][8] The Venus of Hohle Fels, from the same area, is somewhat later.[9] Throughout history, statues have been associated with cult images in many religious traditions, from Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome to the present.
Scotland was occupied by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from around 8500 BCE, who were highly mobile boat-using people making tools from bone, stone and antlers. From about 3000 BCE they introduced the many standing stones and circles such as those at Stenness on the mainland of Orkney, which date from about 3100 BCE. These were part of a pattern that developed in many regions across Europe at about the same time. Probably the oldest examples of portable visual art to survive from Scotland are carved stone balls, or petrospheres, that date from the late Neolithic era. They are a uniquely Scottish phenomenon, with over 425 known examples. Most are from modern Aberdeenshire, but a handful of examples are known from Iona, Skye, Harris, Uist, Lewis, Arran, Hawick, Wigtownshire and fifteen from Orkney, five of which were found at the Neolithic village of Skara Brae. Many functions have been suggested for these objects, most indicating that they were prestigious and powerful possessions. Their production may have continued into the Iron Age. The complex carved circles and spirals on these balls can be seen mirrored in the carving on what was probably a lintel from a chambered cairn at Pierowall on Westray, Orkney, which seem to be part of the same culture that produced carvings at Newgrange in Ireland.
Many of the oldest sculptural elements have been moved to the museum beside the temple, and some, such as the carved stone railing wall around the main structure, have been replaced by replicas. The main temple's survival is especially impressive, as it was mostly made of brick covered with stucco, materials that are much less durable than stone. But this means that very little of the original sculptural decoration has survived.
The art of Mesopotamia has survived in the archaeological record from early hunter-gatherer societies (10th millennium BC) through the Bronze Age cultures of the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires. These empires were later replaced in the Iron Age by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires. Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia brought significant cultural developments, including the oldest examples of writing. 
The art of Mesopotamia rivaled that of Ancient Egypt as the most grand, sophisticated, and elaborate in western Eurasia from the 4th millennium BC until the Persian Achaemenid Empire conquered the region in the 6th century BC. The main emphasis was on various durable forms of sculpture in stone and clay; little painting has survived, but what does exist suggests that, with some exceptions, painting was mainly used for geometrical and plant-based decorative schemes. Most sculptures were painted as well. Cylinder seals have survived in large numbers, many including complex and detailed scenes despite their small size. 
She is clinker-built and was schooner-rigged with a bowsprit. A set of her spars is preserved with her, along with her armament (six cannon and two stern chasers) and the winding gear employed to draw her into the boathouse. She is the oldest surviving schooner in the world and the oldest surviving example of the shallop hull form. She was fitted with sliding keels (progenitors of the modern daggerboard) not long after the invention of the technology by John Schank, and she is the oldest surviving example of such a vessel.
Experts comment on the quality of the carving, the general condition of the sculpture, and the rareness of survival of such objects. Comments include the following. The statue is "one of the very few representatives in Britain of the genre of colossal religious figural sculpture, and it is in outstanding condition". It is "one of the few remaining British examples of colossal religious figurative sculpture, and remains in outstanding condition despite the upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries." The art historian Phillip Lindley describes the statue as "the work of a sculptor whose mastery of this rather unpromising material is such that his figure need not fear comparison with almost any sculpture of its period in England. It is a work of national and even international significance, one of the most important pieces of late medieval sculpture to survive from the north of England ...It is an extremely rare survival of gigantic sculpture from late medieval England, since there are no other sculpted English images of this saint to set against the great continental survivors ..."
There are hundreds of artistic representations of girdle books. Their popularity in art indicates a much wider distribution and adoption of the girdle book as a binding than surviving copies suggest. A list of 150 examples "shows the proportion of representation in painting and in sculpture [as] almost equal." However, only 23 medieval girdle books have survived in their original binding, the oldest datable example being from Kastl, Germany (ca. 1453). At least part of the reason for the small number of surviving examples stems from the fact that the use of the girdle book was largely confined to a narrow area from the Netherlands to the Upper Rhine Valley.
The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It is significant "as a rare example of the Gothic Revival Style of architecture", being the only surviving example in Carson City and one of few in Nevada. It is also the oldest surviving house in Carson City.
Compared to the Greeks, the Romans made less use of stone sculpture on buildings, apparently having few friezes with figures. Important pediments, such as the Pantheon for example, originally had sculpture, but hardly any have survived. Terracotta relief panels called Campana reliefs have survived in good numbers. These were used to decorate interior walls, in strips.
A celestial sphere can also refer to a physical model of the celestial sphere or celestial globe.
Such globes map the constellations on the "outside" of a sphere, resulting in a mirror image of the constellations as seen from Earth. The oldest surviving example of such an artifact is the globe of the Farnese Atlas sculpture, a 2nd-century copy of an older (Hellenistic period, ca. 120 BCE) work.
Few examples of chryselephantine sculpture have been found. The most prominent surviving examples are fragments of several burnt statues (less than life-sized) from the Archaic period, discovered at Delphi. Unfortunately, it is not known whom they depict, although they are assumed to represent deities.
Much of the outside structure was built in friable grit, which caused outer sculptures and masonry elements to deteriorate with time. The oldest features surviving include several sculptures, arches, simpler masonry patterns such as trilobes, as well as numerous portals, while the crowning is imitation Gothic dating from the 18th century.
The Licchavi period, named for the ruling Licchavi family, spanned 400-750 A.D. A sculpture of Baman Tribikram erected by Lichchhavi king Man Dev is considered to be the oldest sculpture in Nepal. Sculptures that were created during the Licchchhavi period include ones of Palanchowk Bhagawati, Budhanilkantha, etc. The statues inside Changu Narayan Temple and around it, statue of Palanchowk Bhagawati, statue of Budhanilkantha are few examples of sculptures made during the Licchchhavi period of time.
Sculpture is one of the oldest arts in Mexico. In Prehispanic Mexico, it is present in pyramids, sanctuaries, esplanades and communal objects; examples of this are the Olmec, Mayan, Teotihuacan, Tarascan, Mixtec and Aztec sculptures.
Dated around the year 980, it is both the oldest known sculpture of the Madonna and the oldest free-standing medieval sculpture north of the Alps, and is also one of the few major works of art to survive from Ottonian times. To this day it remains an object of veneration and symbol of identity for the population of the Ruhr Area. It is the only full-length survival from what appears to have been a common form of statue among the wealthiest churches and abbeys of 10th and 11th century Northern Europe; some of these were life-size, especially figures of the Crucifixion. 
The oldest surviving work of Persian literary criticism is the "Muqaddamah-i Shāhnāmah-i Abū Manṣūrī" (Introduction to Abū Manṣūr's "Shāhnāmah"). "This work deals with the myths and legends of the "Shāhnāmah" and is considered the oldest surviving example of Persian prose." 
Sculpture in Scotland includes all visual arts operating in three dimensions in the borders of modern Scotland. Durable sculptural processes traditionally include carving (the removal of material) and modelling (the addition of material), in stone, metal, clay, wood and other materials. In the modern era these were joined by assembly by welding, modelling, moulding and casting. Some installation art can also be considered to be sculpture. The earliest surviving sculptures from Scotland are standing stones and circles from around 3000 BCE. The oldest portable visual art are carved-stone petrospheres and the Westray Wife is the earliest representation of a human face found in Scotland. From the Bronze Age there are extensive examples of rock art, including cup and ring marks and elaborate carved stone battle-axes. By the early Iron Age Scotland had been penetrated by the wider European La Tène culture, and a few examples of decoration survive from Scotland. There are also decorated torcs, scabbards, armlets and war trumpets. The Romans began military expeditions into what is now Scotland from about 71 CE, leaving a direct sculptural legacy of distance slabs, altars and other sculptures.
The Classical Period also saw an increase in the use of statues and sculptures as decorations of buildings. The characteristic temples of the Classical era, such as the Parthenon in Athens, and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, used relief sculpture for decorative friezes, and sculpture in the round to fill the triangular fields of the pediments. The difficult aesthetic and technical challenge stimulated much in the way of sculptural innovation. Most of these works survive only in fragments, for example the Parthenon Marbles, roughly half of which are in the British Museum.
On 3 March 1674 Dwight's six-year-old daughter Lydia died. In her memory he produced two ceramic sculptures, which are among the oldest examples of this type in Europe. In the same year he exhibited similar sculptures to the Royal Society, indicating that he was developing his method of manufacturing salt-glazed stoneware in order to enable it to be used for this purpose. Statues and figures are mentioned in his revised patent of 1684, although he does not seem to have produced any after this date, almost all the known examples having been made in the 1670s. The names of the modellers of the sculptures are not known.
The oldest surviving heraldic seals are the equestrian seals (German: "Reitersiegel") used by high nobility in the second half of the 12th century. Among the oldest examples from the Holy Roman Empire, of what would develop into German heraldry, is the lion (or "leopard") of the Staufer coat of arms, first used before 1146 by Henry "the Lion", and in 1181 on the seal of Frederick VI of Swabia. Similar seals are known from England, the oldest being the equestrian seal of King Richard Lionheart of the House of Plantagenet, dated 1189, showing a heraldic lion design on the king's shield. His second seal, dated 1198, shows the three lions design which would subsequently become the royal coat of arms of England. 
Baekje Buddhist sculpture is characterized by its naturalness, warmness, and harmonious proportions exhibits a unique Korean style. Another example of Korean influence is the use of the distinctive "Baekje smile", a mysterious and unique smile that is characteristic of many Baekje statutes. While there are no surviving examples of wooden architecture, the Mireuksa site holds the foundation stones of a destroyed temple and two surviving granite pagodas that show what Baekje architecture may have looked. An example of Baekje architecture may be gleaned from Horyu-ji temple because Baekje architects and craftsmen helped design and construct the original temple.
Apart from Anglo-Saxon architecture, which survives entirely in churches, with only a handful of largely unaltered examples, monumental stone sculpture survives in large stone crosses, an equivalent to the high crosses of the Celtic areas of Britain. Most sculpture was probably once painted, clarifying the designs, which are mostly in relatively low relief and not finished with great precision, and now almost all badly worn and weathered. Dating is usually difficult. Sculpture in wood was very likely more common, but almost the only significant large survival is St Cuthbert's coffin in Durham Cathedral, probably made in 698, with numerous linear images carved or incised in a technique that is a sort of large-scale engraving. The material of the earliest recorded crosses is unknown, but may well have been wood. From various references (to its destruction by Christians) there would seem to have been a tradition of Anglo-Saxon pagan monumental sculpture, probably in wood, of which no examples remain (as opposed to later Anglo-Scandinavian pagan imagery), and with which the crosses initially competed.
The Golden Madonna is both the oldest known sculpture of the Madonna and the oldest free-standing sculpture north of the Alps. It is also one of only two extant medieval gilded cult images. Gilded sculptures are frequently mentioned in medieval documents, but apart from an image of Saint Fides in the abbey of Saint-Foy in Conques in Southern France no such artifacts survive (the Madonna of Hildesheim was stripped of its original gold-leaf covering at some time). We know Charlemagne had a life-size crucifix with the figure of Christ in gold in his Palatine Chapel in Aachen, the oldest such object to be described, and many similar figures in precious metal, all now vanished, are recorded in large Anglo-Saxon churches and elsewhere. Most often they are crucifixes, and sometimes accompanying figures of Mary and John the Evangelist are mentioned, as for example those by Spearhafoc in the 11th century. 
No terrestrial globes from Antiquity or the Middle Ages have survived. An example of a surviving celestial globe is part of a Hellenistic sculpture, called the Farnese Atlas, surviving in a 2nd-century AD Roman copy in the Naples Archaeological Museum, Italy.
Early Christian art survives from dates near the origins of Christianity. The oldest surviving Christian paintings are from the site at Megiddo, dated to around the year 70, and the oldest Christian sculptures are from sarcophagi, dating to the beginning of the 2nd century. Until the adoption of Christianity by Constantine Christian art derived its style and much of its iconography from popular Roman art, but from this point grand Christian buildings built under imperial patronage brought a need for Christian versions of Roman elite and official art, of which mosaics in churches in Rome are the most prominent surviving examples.