For Yous Data - The Mystery Of Spain's 'Great Golden Lady'

The 'great lady' seat inwards the middle of a circular tomb. Alone. Her torso was covered amongst xv pocket-size gilt plates too her cervix surrounded past times 48 ivory beads. She also kept the 3 "V" shaped buttons that fastened her missing clothes. The adult woman is only 1 of the 160 bodies institute inwards the excavations of Humanejos, inwards Parla (Madrid), too unearthed past times experts inwards the final 10 years inwards what is considered the largest Bell Beaker cemetery, dating betwixt the minute too 3rd millennium BC, on the Iberian Peninsula.

Skull of the 'great lady', woman individual skeleton institute inwards Humanejos, Parla
[Credit: Sara Genicio/El Pais]

The remains are currently beingness tested for carbon fourteen at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) to decide their exact date, piece genetic analyses are beingness carried out inwards the deoxyribonucleic acid laboratories of Harvard University (United States) too Mainz (Germany). In add-on to the Community of Madrid, which bears the costs, researchers from the Autonomous too Complutense Universities of Madrid too private companies are also involved inwards the project.

The site is colossal inwards size too particular inwards findings, ranging from the Chalcolithic to the Modern Age. Initially idea to comprehend an surface area of some 2.5 hectares, the site straight off exceeds xx hectares, extending through the municipalities of Parla too Torrejón de la Calzada.

It was discovered at the halt of the 19th century past times French travellers who included an engraving of the remains of a Mudejar church building - thence inwards the middle of nowhere - inwards their go book. In the 1980s, the straight off defunct Provincial Council of Madrid carried out some preliminary excavations, but it was non until the A-42 expressway too the evolution of the PAU-5 industrial estate were built inwards 2008 that the site left archaeologists speechless.

Remains of the lady institute inwards Humanejos, Parla [Credit: Sara Genicio/El Pais]

Raúl Flores, co-director of the excavations, describes the site every bit beingness of "global significance". The findings mouth for themselves: 100 tombs, 160 individuals, 2,000 domestic structures too numerous grave goods, including hundreds of prehistoric artefacts, ranging from ceramics, too to axes too daggers.

The Humanejos necropolis - without counting the finds of afterwards historical times - comprises ii periods of the like shooting fish in a barrel stage of the local Chalcolithic - a pre-Bell Beaker stage (3300 to 2500 BC) too a Bell Beaker stage (2500 to 2000 BC) - every bit good every bit the Middle too Late Bronze Ages (2000 to 1300 BC).

The grave goods from the pre-Bell Beaker stage include beads of variscite necklaces (from Zamora), every bit good every bit axes, copper daggers too tools, every bit good every bit 110 ceramic vases.

Bell shaped vessel institute inwards Humanejos, Parla [Credit: Sara Genicio/El Pais]

The Bell Beaker grave goods include 56 ceramic vases, both decorated too plain, copper weapons, to a greater extent than than fifty ivory beads, daggers, pike tips, awls too axes. This stage also includes xix gilt plates, xv of which were institute inwards the tomb of the 'great lady', the primary woman individual character.

The remains of this adult woman were discovered within a circular tomb 2.8 metres inwards diametre too 1.2 metres high. Rafael Garrido, co-director of the projection too professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid, believes that "the torso corresponds to a remarkable adult woman of the time".

This is demonstrated past times the fact that her torso was buried solitary whereas the other tombs incorporate at to the lowest degree ii burials, every bit good every bit the large trousseau that accompanied her. It is known that the adult woman was clothed, although no remains of her wearable bring been detected, salve for the 3 aforementioned buttons.

One of the daggers unearthed inwards the necropolis
[Credit: Sara Genicio/El Pais]

It is non known precisely what the individuals belonging to this menstruum wore, although inwards the Swiss site of Petit Chasseur several funerary stelae were institute that presented characters wearing vestments amongst decorations identical to those exhibited inwards the bell-shaped beakers.

The "bell-shaped beaker enigma" spread from Kingdom of Morocco to Denmark, too from Espana to the Czech Republic. deoxyribonucleic acid tests demo that the diverse peoples of the so-called Bell-Beaker civilization did non shape a unmarried racial unit of measurement but belonged instead to a wider commercial network across much of Western Europe.

Source: El Pais [September 17, 2018]


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