Posted on 10/01/2010 2:54:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Excavator Nicholas Stampolidis said his team discovered more than 3,000 pieces of gold foil in the 7th-century B.C. twin grave near the ancient town of Eleutherna... The tiny gold ornaments, from 1 to 4 centimetres (0.4 to 1.5 inches) long, had been sewn onto a lavish robe or shroud that initially wrapped the body of a woman and has almost completely rotted away but for a few off-white threads... The woman, who presumably had a high social or religious status, was buried with a second skeleton in a large jar sealed with a stone slab weighing more than half a ton. It was hidden behind a false wall, to confuse grave robbers. Experts are trying to determine the other skeleton's sex. The grave also contained a copper bowl; pottery; perfume bottles imported from Egypt or Syria and Palestine; hundreds of amber, rock crystal and faience beads; as well as a gold pendant in the form of a bee goddess that probably was part of a rock crystal and gold necklace... The ruins of Eleutherna stand on the northern foothills of Mount Ida -- the mythical birthplace of Zeus, chief of the ancient Greek gods. Past excavations have discovered a citadel, homes and an important cemetery with lavish female burials. The town flourished from the 9th century B.C. -- the dark ages of Greek archaeology that followed the fall of Crete's great Minoan palatial culture -- and endured until the Middle Ages.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
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TTIUUWP.
Utterly.
Why did they bury gold in that fashion? Popular answer would be that the woman meant a great deal to her society.
But does that increase or decrease the value in which they held gold? Was it plentiful at the time?
It’s a rare day in this century that anyone would bury loved ones smothered in gold.
wow, I wonder how much I could get for that stuff at my local Cash for Gold store
goldfinger_1.jpg)
Foiled again!!
Thanks for the ping
Strange thing to do with your gold, I must say. Good thing it’s incorruptible!
I think this is rude and crude that you are cheapening this wonderful archeological find...by comparing it to Goldfinger...You should be ashamed of yourself....Have you no respect...for the ancient Greeks? Have you class...Have you no cooth?
Please apologize now...or your door will be darkened by an old woman carrying a cane....
nikos vlachos
tripoli, greece by way of lagrange, GA....
Yowza!
Too bad there’s not also a Cash for Mummies store right next to it.
“There’s hills in them thar gold.” — Alfred Hitchcock
The deceased was the ancestor of the Reynolds family.
My pleasure.
Ya can’t eat it, so you may as well be buried with it.
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