Near the village of Petrykiv, south of Ternópil, Ukraine, a team of archaeologists moved the earth and found something they did not expect: two skeletons, face to face, with their foreheads touching and their legs intertwined. They had been there for 3,000 years, since the Bronze Age.
What most unsettled archaeologist Mykola Bandrivsky, who led the study, was the exact position of her body. According to his analysis, that posture was only possible if the woman was still breathing when she was placed in the tomb. His team’s hypothesis is that she took poison of her own free will, so as not to be separated from her already-dead husband.
Beside their heads were a bowl, a jar, and three ceramic vessels, as well as bronze ornaments on the bodies. None of this can be confirmed with absolute certainty, but the gesture remains there, intact, reminding you that extreme love is not an invention of this era either.
