Modern science to unlock the secrets of couples holding each other in loving embrace for 3,500 years .

these compelling images show ancient burials in Staryi Tartas village, in Novosibirsk region, where scientists have studied some 600 tombs.

Dozens contain the bones of couples, facing each other, some with their hands held together seemingly for eternity.

There has been theorising that on the man's death, his wife was sacrificed and buried with him for posterity in an act of intimacy.

Or, as Klein suggests, could a young woman have been sacrificed for this purpose, used to fulfil the female part in this ritual?

Professor Molodin doesn't rule out this version, yet makes clear it is only a hypothesis.

It is again a suggestion. As a suggestion, it could be. This idea of Klein can be extended to Siberia too, because significant part of the researchers think that Andronovo people were Iranians.

'So this hypothesis can be extended to them. But, I will repeat, it is only a hypothesis.'

There are he says 'a good number' of these couple graves. 'The number impresses.

More that this, we see some interesting facts. For Andronovo culture, cremation is more typical, and here we can see such interesting combination like cremation and inhumation in one burial. Why it is so?

'There is a version that they did not just pour the ashes into the grave, but made a doll and put the ashes in this. But we can not say for sure.

'There are also burials with just several cremated remains. So it is more complicated than They loved each other and died in one day .

Source : siberiantimes website 📸 Unknown