ROME, Italy (FoxNews) — It could be humanity’s oldest story of doomed love.
Archaeologists have unearthed two skeletons from the Neolithic period locked in a tender embrace and buried outside Mantua, just 25 miles south of Verona, the romantic city where Shakespeare set the star-crossed tale of Romeo and Juliet.
Buried between 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, the prehistoric lovers are believed to have been a man and a woman and are thought to have died young, as their teeth were found intact, said Elena Menotti, the archaeologist who led the dig.
“As far as we know, it’s unique,” Menotti told The Associated Press by telephone from Milan. “Double burials from the Neolithic are unheard of, and these are even hugging.”
The burial site was located Monday during construction work for a factory building in the outskirts of Mantua. Alongside the couple, archaeologists found flint tools, including arrowheads and a knife, Menotti said.
Experts now will study the artifacts and the skeletons to determine the burial site’s age and how old the two were when they died, she said.
Are they a couple?
Male and Female?
parent and child?
How refreshing to learn that even those who lived 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, knew what Love was.
Happy Valentines!
truly amazing!
i would want to die with the one i love!
When I saw it I also felt the the strength of that love even thousands of years had pass! Its like me and my only love! nothing can separate us!
Maybe they died strangling each other?
That’s an awesome find but not surprising. Love is a basic human emotion so it doesn’t surprise me that a couple would want to be buried together even 5000 years ago.
id rather die being loved, then live without it. beautiful testament to the human capacity for kindness.
this is awesome!!! only so lucky to have died together!!! one not have to know life without the other one!!! very very cool. just learned of this story because of a guy’s tattoo!! he was so moved that he tattooed to his leg!! its true!!