Turkish archaeologists have made an incredible discovery in Turkey: a well-preserved brain and skin remains belonging to two people believed to have died 3,700 years ago during the Bronze Age, which were found during excavations at the Tavşanlı Mound site in the Turkish province of Kütahya.
The enormous significance of the discovery is that it is the first time skin remains have been found at an archaeological excavation in Turkey, although brain remains have previously been discovered at other sites in the country, experts say. Archaeologists believe the biological remains – preserved through a carbonization process – belong to two young men who could not escape from their house in time when it was set on fire during an attack 3,700 years ago.
The findings were revealed at a conference held 30 August-2 September in Belfast, Northern Ireland, organised by the European Association of Archaeologists. Professor Erkan Fidan, head of the archaeology department at Şeyh Edebali University in Bilecik, and director of the excavations, explained during the conference in Belfast that the Tavşanlı mound is the oldest site in the area, and that the site is believed to have been the capital of the region in the Bronze Age.
According to Fidan, around 1700 B.C.E. there was a large-scale attack on the city, which was razed and burned to the ground; the destruction was such that the site was left uninhabited for the next 300 years. Another Turkish expert, Professor Yılmaz Selim Erdal of the anthropology department of Hacettepe University in Ankara, argued that the two skeletons discovered show signs of having been exposed to very high temperatures.
According to Erdal, it was precisely this high external heat from the fire that allowed the brain to be preserved inside the skull. The remains of skin, found by archaeologists on one of the skeletons between the chest and abdomen, were also charred by the heat of the fire. Archaeologists are now trying to find out who carried out such a devastating attack on the region 3,700 years ago, and why the city was destroyed.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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