Love Neolithic Style or Eros Rigor Mortis
 

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Cheesy thread titles aside, I find this to be very romantic.
:)

Ah, just in time for Valentine's Day. "Oh, l'amour, l'amour!"

I really don't like archaeologists. Really don't.

Leave the grave the *bleep* alone.

I saw this article this morning, very cool find. I've always wanted to go on a working archaeological dig (of course, now at my advanced age, my knees would protest loudly). Maybe a working vacation in Italy, yeah, that would work. :D

Gives all new meaning to the expression "boned."

You don't like any of them? Or would you prefer they just left human remains alone but continued to excavate the other areas of ancient sites?

I can understand the sensitivity, since, in our own time, defiling a grave is taboo. But, I also think it's extraordinarily important that we learn all we can about who we are and how we got here.

In my own view, the people themselves are long past caring about it, and if the society that buried them 6000 years ago has vanished, I don't see it as much of a violation. This is how ancient people go from complete obscurity to being newly talked about, understood and celebrated.

If thousands of years from now, someone unearths my bones and examines my belongings, and thereby gains new understanding, I am totally cool with that. I just hope they don't conclude from my own example that 21st century society was a shark-worshpping cult.

Actually, I think that would be very cool! I'd like to be around to witness that, and be able to remember this current life so I can really have a good laugh about it all.

I can't help but think of the Simpsons when they find the bones of an "angel"

a stunning picture. I thought the same.

to hold you in my arms
until such time as dust overtake us
and return us to from whence we came
in the bosom of the mother earth herself
through eternity you shall mine be


...until some feckless wanker comes and digs us up

:/

This makes me think of Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton for some reason...

only if in fact they were instead trying to kill each other.

I understand exactly what you mean. While I do find it fascinating, it also makes me cringe, especially when I see mummies or grave stuff in museums. I say study it only if we must, with as little disruption as possible, and put the photos and reports on display.

This is an interesting possibility, especially from the photo. It's possible they were choking each other - look at the hand on the right person's neck. Intestesting theory, really.

I hope they are preserved in some way. Or kept somewhere where they can't be damaged.

I find it romantic. Kind of like how they would find the main characters in Aida... centuries later...

There's a story behind this somewhere.
:)

You're cool with it but betcha the neolithic peoples wouldn't have been. We do not need to disrupt their graves.

This reminds me of a picture I once saw of a cast of two victims of Mt. Vesuvius, locked in an eternal embrace.

I remember that picture! It made me sad. :(

Very sad, but I suppose if I were going to die in that way I'd want to be with the one I love (assuming they were also going to die).

But how do we know that? Aren't we really just projecting our own feelings onto what we think the neolithic people though?

We'd have to see the grave itself - it's location and setup to know. My guess is that since we're just finding it now, it was pretty well hidden away.

Let's talk about the imposition of one culture on another. In this thread, we have references to Romeo and Juliet, Aida, the Simpsons' bones of an angel, Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton, and Pompei. We all see others through our own optic.

I see love.
:)

And I see archaeologists who mess around in graves, often misappropriating artifacts and make field-work on Indian reservations super ultra IM-freaking-possible for cultural anthropologists.

Which to my mind is evidence that "culture" is dynamic and perhaps is a poor tool to use as a benchmark.

Then we err on the side of caution and leave the graves the *bleep* alone.

Not necessarily. Just because something has lain undiscovered doesn’t mean it was deliberately hidden. There have been untold millions (perhaps billions) of people buried since the dawn of humankind; the vast majority of which have never been (and probably never will be) uncovered. In some parts of the world, discovering (and the subsequent archeological examination and removal of) buried remains on construction sites is a common occurrence. If these sites were to be left undisturbed when discovered, then very little would ever get built.

Yes! I've seen that as well, featured in a pretty decent documentary on Pompeii. Cool.

Been to Pompeii, they have several of the casts. They are really fascinating in that the people died (generally killed by the noxious gases that poured out of Vesuvius after the initial eruption but before the ash reached them), were covered by ash, and then their bodies decomposed. But the ash kept its form so a negative impression was left of their death pose. Once the excavators realized this, they started to pour plaster into the empty space to take the molds.

As I said, there are several of them on display around the ruins. They are incredibly haunting, some of the people appearing to have been caught screaming when they passed.

And then there's the famous cast of the dog. That one always breaks my heart a little.

oh, now see? that would absolutely kill me

I know, mine too! He was left chained up and survived the first eruption. :(

What gets me is the instantaneous "love" interpretation.

Two infamous thieves, the Bonnie and Clyde of their time, are discovered in their lair and are killed on sight. As the bodies of dishonest people are not to be shown any respect, a thin hole is dug and both corpses are thrown in. Without much room at the bottom, the two happen to land face to face, limbs entwined.

A man confront his wife's female lover and slays her in the dark. After digging a hole in a hidden place and tossing the body in, he finally decides that he can't live with the guilt. His flint knife draws his own blood and he falls in the grave.

A young man and woman get officially married but neither loves the other. It is a marriage of convenience. He has a penchant for men, which he needs to hide. She wants only the status she gains from the union. When the elders discover this ruse against their gods, they ritualistically slay the couple and bury them as intimately as they can. In death, these two will forever atone for their false pretenses by making love for eternity.

Plenty more where that came from...

Party killer.


















something about red longjohns comes to mind.

I rather like being a hopeless romantic.

Funny - I find varied possibilities much more interesting than the knee-jerk Romeo and Juliet interpretation. Star-crossed lovers make for just as serious a story, and aren't about love so much as they are about the injustices of society. My three quick hit stories are also about running afoul of the rules.

Even when I think of this as involving a romance - the moment they were discovered, the young lovers drank poison - I still see "they died very young for no good reason" instead of "oh, they were in love!"

Aye, but isn't that what Romeo and Juliet is all about - a senseless death of two young lovers - but it was the only way to preserve love's first blush. How dull the story would become if we took it through marriage, kids, divorce, public drunkenness, depression, reckless behavior, and a slow death brought on by a chronic and debilitating illness.

Heh, don't get me wrong, no WAY I'd say that R&J is a bad story. :) I love it, actually. You're right about all that. I just mean to say that there are a billion other possibilities, and I love that.

Just as I can't resist getting in a longjohns jab every now and then, despite that I found your three scenarios very clever and interesting.

Merry Wives of Windsor is a fairly approving look at stable marriages. There are a lot of dangerous and destabilizing passions at work in Romeo and Juliet, and I think Shakespeare would not exempt youthful lust, love at first sight, etc. from that view, even if he was in love with Gwyneth Paltrow when he wrote it.

As for the corpses, I vote for buried alive.

Inspiration 8.0?

I think that's a good idea.
:)

I think that they're both blokes.

I agree. An everlasting embrace.:)

Eros and Thanatos. :snap:

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