Archaeologists at ancient Eleutherna (Crete) find skeleton covered with gold foil in 2,700 year-old grave
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Greek archaeologists have found an ancient skeleton covered with gold foil in a grave on the island of Crete. Excavator Nicholas Stampolidis said his team discovered more than 3,000 pieces of gold foil in the 7th-century B.C. twin grave near the ancient town of Eleutherna. Cemeteries there have produced a wealth of outstanding artifacts in recent years. The tiny gold ornaments, from 1 to 4 centimetres (0.4 to 1.5 inches) long, had been `wn onto a lavish robe or shroud that initially wrapped the body of a woman and has almost completely rotted away but for a few off-white threads. ‘The whole length of the (grave) was covered with small pieces of gold foil — square, circular and lozenge-shaped’, Stampolidis told The Associated Press. ‘We were literally digging up gold interspersed with earth, not earth with some gold in it’. The woman, who presumably had a high social or religious status, was buried with a second skeleton in a large jar sealed with a stone slab weighing more than half a ton. It was hidden behind a false wall, to confuse grave robbers. Experts are trying to determine the other skeleton’s sex.
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