oneparticularwave » Picture of the Day: right place, wrong time

Picture of the Day: right place, wrong time February 13, 2008

Posted by ~V~ in : Images, Picture of the Day , trackback

because an image speaks volumes in an instant.

Archaeologists in Italy have unearthed two skeletons thought to be 5,000 to 6,000 years old, locked in an embrace.

The pair from the Neolithic period were discovered outside Mantua, about 40km (25 miles) south of Verona.

The pair, almost certainly a man and a woman, are thought to have died young as their teeth were mostly intact, said chief archaeologist Elena Menotti.

The burial site was discovered during construction work for a factory building.

“It’s an extraordinary case,” said Ms. Menotti. “There has not been a double burial found in the Neolithic period, much less two people hugging - and they really are hugging.”

Flint tools, including arrowheads and a knife, were also found alongside the couple.

Scientists will now study the skeletons and artifacts to work out how and when the two people died, Ms. Menotti said.

“I must say that when we discovered it, we all became very excited,” she said.

“I’ve been doing this job for 25 years. I’ve done digs at Pompeii, all the famous sites, but I’ve never been so moved because this is the discovery of something special,” she said.

Italy won’t split up its
Stone Age “lovers.”

In a Valentine’s Day gift to the country, scientists said they are determined to remove and preserve together the remains of the couple.

Instead of removing the bones one-by-one for reassembly later, archaeologists plan to scoop up the entire section of earth where the couple was buried.

The plot will then be transported for study before being put on display in an Italian museum, thereby preserving the world’s longest known hug for posterity.

“We want to keep them just as they have been all this time — together,” said Ms. Menotti.

Their removal will be a relief for archaeologists who had to hire extra security to guard the rural site outside the northern city of Mantua after the discovery made world headlines.

More importantly, it will give scientists a chance to figure out what was has become one of Italian archaeology’s greatest mysteries.

Was it a sudden death? A ritual sacrifice? Or maybe they were prehistoric, star-crossed lovers who took their own lives.

That is a crowd-pleasing theory in these parts, since Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet‘ was set in nearby Verona.

But scientists acknowledge they still know precious little about the now-famous Stone Age couple, whose embrace has become a subject of world newspaper headlines and chat shows.

Italians dubbed them the “Lovers of Valdaro” after the Mantua suburb of farmland and factories.