News in Brief Archaeology

Ancient Assyrians buried their dead with turtles

The reptiles may have represented eternal life, served as symbolic protectors

Euphrates soft-shell turtle

TURTLE POWER  Euphrates soft-shell turtles (Rafetus euphraticus), which still inhabit Mesopotamia today, may have been part of ancient Assyrian burial rituals.

R. Berthon et al/Antiquity 2016

By Helen Thompson

- More than 2 years ago

Ancient Assyrians sent their dead to the afterlife with fearsome companions: turtles. Excavations of a burial pit in southeastern Turkey revealed skeletons of a woman and a child, plus 21 turtles, a team led by archaeologist Rémi Berthon of France’s National Museum of Natural History reports in the February Antiquity.