Researchers Discover That the Lovers of Modena, Two Ancient Skeletons Found Holding Hands, Were Actually Both Male

There’s a new twist in the story of the Lovers of Modena, the
pair of ancient skeletons who were fossilized holding hands. It
turns out, they were both male.

When archaeologists originally discovered
the fossilized pair in the mud of the Italian city of Modena in
2009, they speculated that they were lovers who died in embrace,
“their faces staring into each other,” Donato Labate, the
director of the archaeological excavation, said at the
time. “I have been involved in many digs but I’ve never felt
so moved.”

But researchers at the University of Bologna and the University
of Modena have since tested the peptides in the tooth enamel
of the 1,500-year-old skeletons and the results, published in the journal
Nature this week, suggest that the one originally
identified as female—perhaps because it wore a bronze ring on one
finger—carried a protein only found in men and was therefore
misclassified.

“They could be brothers, cousins, friends,” Giulia Di Rocco, one
of the study’s authors, told CNN. “They could
even be lovers. They are all equally likely, I think.”

There have been other tombs in the area where archaeologists
have discovered hand-holding skeletons, including the
6,000-year-old so-called Lovers of Valdaro, in northern Italy. But
in each of those cases the skeleton pairs comprised a male and a
female.

Regardless of the nature of the relationship between the two
people in life, the Modena skeletons offer “a unique representation
of commitment between two men during the Italian Late Antiquity,”
the new paper states. Federico Lugli, one of the authors,
added in an interview with the ANSA news agency: “What might
have been the bond between the two individuals in the burial in
Modena remains a mystery for now.”

The post Researchers Discover That the Lovers of Modena, Two
Ancient Skeletons Found Holding Hands, Were Actually Both Male
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