THE LOVERS

Around 800 BCE, the settlement of Hasanlu in northwestern Iran was destroyed by an as yet unknown invading force. Inhabitants were slain and left where they fell, and much of the site was burned in a conflagration. The skeletons of the “lovers” were found together in a mudbrick and plaster bin during excavations in 1973. They perished during the destruction of the site; both have some evidence of trauma from around the time of their death, but no definitively fatal wounds (many injuries such as those to soft tissue could leave the skeleton unmarked). They are facing one another and appear to be in an embrace. The skeleton on the left is reaching out a hand to touch the face of the other individual, and their arms are around one another. The “lovers” were on display at the Penn Museum from the mid-1970s until the mid-1980s.

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