The Lovers Of Valdaro

EVEN DEATH CAN’T SEPARATE

SARASIJ MAJUMDER

In early February 2007, a team of archaeologists led by Elena Menotti announced that their excavation in the village of Valdaro — near Mantua, Italy — had yielded a remarkable discovery: the skeletons of a man and woman lying face to face, arms and legs entwined.

Embraced tenderly, her legs gathered and crossed with each other, his arms on her neck, hers on his shoulders, united for over 6000 years in a peace of abandonment that perhaps was Love. They are the "lovers of Valdaro", two skeletons dating back to the Neolithic period. They belonged to two young people, a man and a woman. On the left is the skeleton of a woman aged between 16 and 20, on the right a man between 18 and 22.

The truly exceptional element is given by their position: faced, that is, FACING TOWARDS EACH OTHER, and not lying in profile.

Photos of the skeleton couple quickly circulated throughout the media — and the fact that the Lovers of Valdaro, as they came to be known, were discovered just before Valentine’s Day made the story especially resonant.

For many, the positioning of the bodies called to mind the story of Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers who met an untimely and tragic end. As archaeologists examined the Valdaro Lovers, they made a number of curious discoveries.

Firstly, the couple died around 6,000 years ago during the Neolithic period. Neolithic double burials were a rarity as is, but the couple’s positioning made the discovery all the more unique. Secondly, the young man and woman were each around 20 years of age when they died. There were no indications that their deaths were violent, and their bodies were likely put into position posthumously.

And although it’s impossible to know the true story of who the lovers once were, the image of their bodies locked in eternal embrace and the unique circumstances surrounding the burial has made the Lovers of Valdaro a source of intrigue and speculation for over a decade.

Speaking to The Daily Mail at the time, Menotti expressed her excitement regarding the find, saying, “I have been involved in lots of digs all over Italy, but nothing has excited me as much as this. 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 truly special.”

For many, photographs of the Lovers of Valdaro told a tragic tale reminiscent of Shakespeare’s most famous work — and in fact, in Romeo and Juliet, Romeo was even sent to Mantua after slaying Tybalt Capulet in a duel. When he returns to Verona, he learns of Juliet’s “death,” setting in motion the events that leads to both lovers’ demise.

Finding A New Home For The Lovers Of Valdaro

A week after the discovery was made, another question arose: What would happen to the Valdaro Lovers? Often when ancient bodies are recovered during archaeological digs, their bones are transported to a laboratory for analysis, and each bone is individually studied to paint a general picture of that ancient person’s life and death.

The Lovers of Valdaro, however, were a unique case. For 6,000 years they had embraced each other. Would they be split up for the sake of science?

Thankfully, Menotti reached a quick conclusion, telling Reuters, “We want to keep them just as they have been all this time — together.” Rather than removing the bones one by one and reassembling them later, archaeologists opted to square out and remove the entire plot of earth where the couple was buried and transport it all together.

The block of earth and the skeleton couple were placed in a wooden box and sent to an archaeological laboratory at the Musei Civici in Como for examination, then later put on display in a glass case at the National Archaeological Museum of Mantua, where they remain to this day.

SOURCES:-

1.0 The Daily Mail

2.0 https://archive.archaeology.org/0801/abstracts/valdaro.html

3.0https://museilombardia.cultura.gov.it/en/magazine/archaeology-in-the-mantua-area-the-lovers-of-valdaro/

4.0 THERE ARE MANY REFERENCES IN THE INTERNET. I studied the listed above.

Image:

From Google