They are not impressive because the carving is complex, though it is.

They are not impressive because of any particular narrative the images are telling, because we cannot know those narratives.

They are impressive because of what they represent about the people who made them: that more than eleven thousand years ago, people — human beings like us, with the same basic cognitive architecture, the same emotional range, the same capacity for meaning-making — gathered in this specific place on this limestone hilltop and created something that required collective will, shared vision, sustained effort, and a commitment to a project that extended beyond any individual lifetime.

The very antiquity of the pillars is part of their power.