For the past ten years Polish and Armenian archaeologists have been excavating the site of Metsamor, a once important religious and economic center in ancient Armenia. Recently, researchers uncovered a well preserved tomb that contains the remains of a couple.
“The death of these people is a mystery to us, we do not know the cause, but everything indicates that they died simultaneously, because there are no traces of the reopening of the tomb” Dr. Krzysztof Jakubiak, director of the Metsomar expedition, said in a press release.
The discovery is a rare one, not for the couple interred inside but because most of the tombs of Metsomar have been looted. This one is untouched.
Along with the couple, researchers have also found precious artifacts, including hundreds of beads and gold and carnelian pendants that made up three necklaces, ceramic vessels that came from the Syrian-Mesopotamian borderlands, and the remains of a wooden burial bed.
The tomb dates from the late Late Bronze Age (1300–1200 BC), making it around 3,200 years old. Metsomar belonged to the empire of Urartu, which spanned parts of modern Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Armenia. Metsomar was continuously settled from the 4th to 17th century until it was destroyed by Scythian or Cimmerian nomads. Though the artifacts left behind in Metsomar suggest a thriving society, little is known of the people who lived there as they seemed to have no written language and, as a result, have left no texts behind.
