The Tokomai Figurines

Around the middle of the twentieth century, a group of scholars carried out archaeological digs on the Japanese island of Hondo. Among what they pulled from the ground were several strange figurines, about sixty centimeters tall and fifteen across, and close to twelve thousand years old.

The face of each one is carefully hidden behind what can only be described as a helmet, with wide slits cut across the place where the eyes would be. A member of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow offered a reading of this that is hard to shake. Behind that helmet, he suggested, there might have been someone with enormous eyes, used to living in places with very little light. Step such a being into a bright world like ours, and it would have to shield its sight, letting in only the smallest sliver of light.

Set aside the question of who these statues were meant to resemble. Even leaving that open, one thing is difficult to argue with. Knowing they were made close to twelve thousand years ago, the figures themselves feel like something that should not exist yet. Look at them, and the helmet looks back at you across all that time, still keeping its secret.