Wood carving

Using a cutting instrument (knife) in one hand, or a chisel in two hands, or one hand on a chisel and one hand on a mallet, wood carving is a kind of woodworking that results in the creation of a wooden figure or figurine, or the sculptural embellishment of a wooden item. Individual sculptures to hand-worked mouldings forming part of a tracery are examples of how the term may be used to refer to the final result.

Some of the best surviving specimens of early European wood carving date back to the Middle Ages and can be found in Germany, Russia, Italy, and France, where the predominant subjects of the time period were Christian iconography and religious symbols. Many full specimens may be found in England from the 16th and 17th centuries, when oak was the favoured material for furniture. The Shigir Idol, carved from larch and estimated to be approximately 12,000 years old, is the world's oldest wood-carved sculpture.