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The Penn Museum, affiliated with the University of
Pennsylvania, said it had lost track of all documentation for
the skeleton which dates to roughly 4500 BC.
But the paperwork turned up this summer, as part of a project to
digitize old records from a 1922-1934 joint expedition by the
British Museum and the Penn Museum to modern-day Iraq.
Researchers were able to determine that the skeleton was
unearthed around 1930 as part of an excavation into the Royal
Cemetery of Ur led by Sir Leonard Woolley.
Woolley's records indicated that he had shipped a skeleton over,
and the team digitizing his records had uncovered pictures of
the excavation, which showed the skeleton being removed from its
grave. A researcher on the digitization project, William
Hafford, mentioned the records to Janet Monge, the museum' chief
curator.
Woolley's team uncovered the remains 40 feet (12 meters) below
the ground, beneath the remains from the cemetery itself, which
dates to 2500 BC. The body was found in a deep layer of silt
that archaeologists believe was left over from a massive flood.
The remains indicate they are those of a well-muscled man who
died at 50 and would have stood approximately 5-feet, 10-inches
(1.78 meters) tall. The museum has named him Noah.
The museum said the discovery has important implications for
current research. Scientific techniques that were not available
at the time of the expedition could give scholars new insights
into diet, ancestral origins, trauma, stress and disease from
the time period, which the museum says is poorly understood.
Intact skeletons from this era are rare. While the museum has
other remains from ancient Ur, about 10 miles (16 km) from
Nassiriya in southern Iraq, "Noah" is about 2,000 years older
than any remains uncovered during the excavation at the site, it
said.
(Editing by Scott Malone and Mohammad Zargham)
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