TOMB RAIDER UNCOVERS
HIDDEN BOUNTY
Copyright 2006 www.tombraiderchronicles.com
[ June 20th 2006 ]
An 82-year-old
Austrian tour guide - who police were questioning
for looting ancient artefacts - has led Italian
authorities to a new archaeological site that
some experts say houses the oldest paintings in
the history of Western civilization, Reuters
reports.
"It's
a prince's tomb that is unique, and I would say
is at the origins of Western art," said Minister
Francesco Rutelli, standing on what, until two
weeks ago when the site was found, was just a
field of barley. The tomb - carved into a hillside
- is decorated with colourful frescoes which archaeologists
said were 2,700 years old.
"There
are thousands of tombs here," said Francesca Boitani,
a culture ministry archaeologist, pointing to
the rolling hills north of Rome which were once
home to the Etruscan city of Veia. "But this one,
it's the pictures that that are stunning. They
give a sense of the primitive."
According
to Reuters, it is the primitive nature of the
paintings that has convinced the experts that
they are at least a generation older than any
others yet found - dating from 700-680 BC.
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