Historical Tidbit: Romeo and Juliet of the Bronze Age

Excavation in Russia (Source)

Did you know...that a Romeo and Juliet of the Bronze Age was excavated in Russia in 2008?

It's true. While trying to start construction for a hotel at "the crossroads of Postovaia and Sedin Streets of Krasnodar," (Source) builders came across the burial site. A vertical shaft, closed off with a damper plate, leads to a sepulchral  chamber. 

Inside, they found a man lying on his back and a woman beside him, holding him lovingly. The couple--both around sixty when they died--were dubbed "Romeo and Juliet of the Bronze Age. 

Dolmen (Source)

The tribes who inhabited the area at the time are almost completely unknown to modern archaeologists. From the looks of things, they had the cult of fire, which just means they used it as purification, perhaps even worshipped it. It was a big part of their lives. They also may have been the people who built the dolmens--"...single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright stones supporting a large flat horizontal capstone." Source

The woman's wrists are adorned with bracelets of bronze beads, which is very atypical for what they do know of tribes in the area.

Who the couple was and why they were buried that way is a complete mystery, one which may never be completely transparent to us in modern times. But it would make for a great historical story.

Source     Source

Would you be interested in a story like this? Would it make a great ending? Beginning? What do you think?

I'll be signing copies of Citadels of Fire at the Layton Barnes and Noble on December 11 from 7-10 pm. Check out the synopsis below (there's a reason this Russian-set excavation mystery caught my eye) and if you'll be in the area, come and see me. Books always make great Christmas gifts. :D

In a world where danger hides in plain sight and no one aspires to more than what they were born to, Inga must find the courage to break the oppressive chains she’s been bound with since birth.

As a maid in the infamous Kremlin, life in 16th-century Russia is bleak and treacherous. That is, until Taras arrives. Convinced that his mother’s death when he was a boy was no mere accident, he returned from England to discover what really happened. While there, he gains favor from the Tsar later known as Ivan the Terrible, the most brutal and notorious ruler ever to sit upon the throne of Russia. Ivan allows him to take a servant, and to save Inga from a brutal boyar intent on raping her, Taras requests Inga to stay in his chambers.

Up against the social confines of the time, the shadowy conspiracies that cloak their history, and the sexual politics of the Russian Imperial court, Inga and Taras must discover their past, plan for their future, and survive the brutality that permeates life within the four walls that tower over them all, or they may end up like so many citizens of ancient Russia: nothing but flesh and bone mortar for the stones of the Kremlin wall.

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