Timeless Love
The greatest battle for the historical writer is creating romance when we know how gloomy and difficult history was for those who lived it. It’s our jobs as authors to push through the curtain of darkness to find the light and goodness. History can be dull and as dry as the desert. It becomes our responsibility to inject romance into our characters lives to enthrall the reader with every turn of the page.
Maybe we had it right, after all. History did have its own brand of romance. We just had to dig a little deeper to find it.
Recently, archaeologist uncovered a grave in Northern Italy of a man and woman buried together with bodies entwined in a lovers embrace face to face.
From the bones and teeth it was determined the couples age was about twenty years old. The find was so rare, especially for the period, both the professionals and students stood in awe.
A hush fell on the dig. The words from Romeo and Juliet came to mind: I will stay with thee; and never from this palace of dim night depart again.
The estimated time, Neolithic or the New Stone Age.
In order to study the bones closer, separation of the couple was becoming the most likely scenario. After a great debate the archaeologist pushed for removal. Time was of the essences. If left exposed, the site was imperil from vandals and gypsies, who steal artifacts to sell on the black market. Protection of the lovers was of the utmost in everyone’s mind.
The group decided to act in a manner as rare as the lover’s embrace. After a lot of research, debate, and elbow grease, a way to remove the lovers intact was created. They dug under the grave, injecting cement into the dirt. The compound held the soil together like glue. Lifted out of the gravesite, the couple was loaded into a cart together, still holding each other.
Who says a group of dry archaeologist can’t be romantic.
The cause of the couple’s death was still unknown at the time of removal. Considering the era, it most likely was something dark and the furthest from romantic.
Even after time and history covered them for five thousand years, the final embrace, the final gaze into each other’s eyes was still apparent, When they were placed in the grave, nose to nose, man was just starting to grow crops, keep domestic animals as farming communities developed.
No matter the age, the prehistoric couple evokes romantic interpretations.
The lovers are safely together in a lab near Lake Como. They rest together not far from their beginnings and their eventual end. Noninvasive testing will be conducted to determine what happened to them. As they died together, they will always remain together. It was decided they should stay together not because of the rarity of the find, but because it was what the young couple so obviously wanted.
This is the stuff of romantic ideals are made of, even for a prehistoric man and woman who loved five thousand years ago.
Question of the Day: What do you think happened to them?
April 18th, 2008
Lee 
in
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April 18th, 2008 at 9:30 am
I can’t imagine what happened to them. I need coffee to get my imagination moving. I hadn’t heard of this. What an interesting story.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Yeah its early, I’m on my second cup already, got up early with the kitty. This was little known find that didn’t make the news. It was mostly in the archaeology world it was news. The grave was stubbled upon, when they were actually studying something completely different. It was a surprise and extremely rare for the era. I do wonder what happened to them to die together at what was considered middle age for the time.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Aw! I love this story! I got teary-eyed reading about it and picturing them being found that way. Part of me wishes they’d been left alone, though.
I wonder if something terrible was going to happen, something that meant certain death, so they decided to die together instead of waiting. Or maybe they were being punished for being together, so they were put to death and buried that way or something.
I love the idea of being buried that way, though. Romantic until the end and on through the ages.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:08 am
It is fun to speculate but we may never know, and maybe that is romantic too. For it to remain a mystery for us all to question and wonder about. Perhaps one of them was dying and the other chose to follow their love to the other world.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:36 am
We’re all so romantic. They remind me of a Romeo & Juliet type scenrio.
April 18th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Wow, I hadn’t heard about this. It reminds me of the musical Aida. An Egyptian captain and a slave, Aida, fall in love and are ordered to be locked and buried into a tomb together. When the lights go dark they are holding each other. Of course, that musical has the “happy” ending that the couples reunited in the future in reincarnated selves. I hope that’s what happened to these two lovers. Great post!!
April 20th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Oh, what a romantic story, so many possible explanations. I rather like the idea that they knew some catastrophe was imminent and decide to face it together - and die together. How sad. I heard of another archaelogical dig in this country recently, not a man and his lover - but a knight and his horse. They’d obviously been killed together and had been buried together, since he must have loved the animal. Unfortunately some of the archaelogists in this case weren’t so sympathetic, and despite a lot of protest the knight and his steed were parted.
I’m glad the ancient couple in the story you told were able to stay in each others’ arms.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:53 pm
marvellous(personal) plot. So to out!