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
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