Sweet Mystery
Archaeologists in China recently reported the discovery of a grave in which there was a couple (of skeletons) in a loving embrace.
At first blush, it seems like about the most romantic thing you could imagine.
I mean, here’s two (skeleton) people who seem to be carrying their love for each other into eternity.
But I got to thinking about it — and suddenly there was an air of mystery about this loving scene.
Several questions began to occur to me, and probably to others who might decide to give the sight of these two eternal “lovers” a little more thought.
So here they are:
Did they both die at the same time?
Did they die of suffocation from dirt thrown on them to cover them up — i.e., Were they buried alive?
If not by suffocation, then how did they die?
Did they die together and someone decided to bury them in the same grave — and then posed them to look like they were in an embrace?
Because — last time I checked — people could not move their limbs after death. Someone would have to be enlisted to do that for them.
So was it a family member?
Was it someone who loved the couple very much and believed in their heart that a last loving embrace would be how the pair would want to enter the afterlife?
Or could it have been someone who really didn’t like the couple and arranged their bones as if they were lovers in life — but they really weren’t?
(OK — I realize that last one was a pretty big stretch…)
According to the archaeologists who found the grave lovers, they were buried about 1,500 years ago in Northern China. Not a lot is known about burial practices of the people who inhabited that region so long ago.
So there is only speculation about what the grave lovers scene might mean.
According to a story in USA Today, Qun Zhang, an anthropologist at Xiamen University, said the burial era coincided with a rise in Buddhism when people were increasingly focused on the afterlife.
“This discovery is a unique display of the human emotion of love in a burial, offering a rare glimpse of concepts of love, life, death and the afterlife in Northern China during a time of intense cultural and ethnic exchange,” said Zang.
The story said it is unclear who died first, although the man’s skeleton had signs of an unhealed injury — meaning it’s possible the woman might’ve died second in sacrificial form to rest alongside the man.
Or, the two could have somehow died at the same time together.
Maybe I’m overthinking the whole thing….?
Let’s just leave it as a very romantic image. The details are really not that important at this point.
Originally published at https://www.stevenvporter.com on August 30, 2021.
