The Ain Ghazal Statue Oldest work in the Louvre museum, the 9000 years old human form statue comes from excavations at Ain Ghazal in Jordan. Discovered in 1985 it dates back from the Neolithic Pre-Ceramic period (7th millennium) and was made out of gypsum plaster.

The oldest items in the Louvre Museum's vast collection are the Ain Ghazal Statues, which date back approximately 9,000 years to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period (circa 7,000–6,500 BCE). These remarkable statues were discovered in Jordan and are among the earliest large-scale representations of the human form ever found. They are made of white lime plaster applied over a core of bundled reeds and bituman, and their eyes were often detailed with cowrie shells. Beyond these, the museum also houses significant Mesopotamian artifacts like the "Vulture Stele" and the "Code of Hammurabi," which are over 3,500 years old. However, the Ain Ghazal statues predate the invention of writing and the rise of the first civilizations, making them a window into the spiritual and artistic lives of some of the world's first settled farmers. Displayed in the Near Eastern Antiquities department, they represent the very dawn of human artistic expression. Because they are incredibly fragile, they are housed in climate-controlled cases to prevent the plaster from crumbling, ensuring that these 9,000-year-old figures can still be seen by millions of modern visitors in 2026 as a testament to the endurance of human creativity through the millennia.