Saying “short people” is waaaaay different than “nearly life-sized”. There is more to size than height. Proportions matter too. Shorter people aren’t also narrower, for example. It makes sense to me, but if they said they found statues of short people I wouldn’t get the same vibe.
I agree that people aren’t all the same height, but there are averages to go off. That’s why things like chairs and doorways work for most people.
The more I look at the photos the more I think they are indeed statues. There is a big ol’ void beneath the dude that suggests he’s standing on dirt, and not carved from a stone that was originally there. They also seem to be two different statues that were placed side by side. You can see a seam in between them. I suspect that they were carved separately, but with the “wall” structures around them with the intent to be put in an alcove or something.
At the end of the day though, this is all kind of petty and overly semantic. I don’t think this was written by AI, and you do. A sample size of 2 isn’t all that great. I just wanted to share some neat stone carving things that were found in Pompeii, not debate about the grammar of the article.
I was involved in a very vicious street fight. It was incredibly violent and frantic, with blood everywhere. It was more of a free for all instead of me taking on like nine dudes. I’m not a violent person at all, so it was really distressing. Some big guy lifted me up and slammed me against a wall, so I reached out and gouged his eye with my thumb. It was awful. I could feel the shape, and it was all clammy. It was so against my regular self that I burst awake. I thought it was still going on though because I could still feel it on my thumb. Turns out my hand was in my shorts, and the clammy eyeball shape was a part of my male anatomy.