Ancient skeletal pair holding hands and excavated from a grave in Modena, a town in southern Italy at 2004 turned out to be men. Lovers of Modena-as they are famous are found holding there skeletal hands clutched and lying side by side.
The remains, dating from between the 4th and 6th centuries AD, had degraded so much it was thought impossible to determine their gender and it was assumed to be a man and a woman. After examining protein present in tooth enamel, scientists from the University of Bologna have proved the skeletons were those of two men.
“We were able to extract proteins from the dental enamel of both individuals … and to confidently classify them as males,” the 20 scientists involved in the project wrote in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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