The first reconstruction of a Neolithic necklace and a grave that will change the textbooks

A necklace made up of more than 2,580 beads has been discovered in a 9,000-year-old grave in the Neolithic village of Ba`ja, north of the city of Petra in southern Jordan. It has now been completely restored, the first time scientists have been able to make an authentic reconstruction of such an old and elaborately made piece of jewellery.

An international research team led by Hans Georg K. Gebel, Christoph Purschwitz and Marion Benz from the University of Berlin evaluated and reconstructed the findings from the 9,000-year-old grave of a little girl. Hala Alarashi from the University of Nice and Alice Costes and Andrea Fischer from the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart conserved and reconstructed the unique necklace. In October, it was handed over to a museum in the Jordanian city of Petra.

The necklace was found in 2018 in the richly furnished grave of a little girl lying on her left side in a crouched position. Archaeologists have named her Jamila of Ba`ja. She was between eight and 10 years old at the time of her death. A lump of red pigment was found at her feet and chest. The outer surface of all her bones was stained red. The lump of pigment was not the source, nor was it applied directly to her bones, but apparently her skin or clothing had been stained and after decomposition the pigment moved to her skeleton.

The beads were on her chest, neck and left shoulder. Most represent small rings made of red limestone and a few barrel and roller beads of the same material. The strings of mostly red beads are interspersed with white cylindrical beads made of fossilized conch shell, five blue disc beads and two black hematite spherical beads. The clasp was probably a larger oval two-hole hematite bead.

The grave itself is also exceptionally rare. It consists of more than 80 sandstone slabs and parts of slabs, with two upright slabs on each side, one coveredcovering the chamber and dozens of deliberately broken oval slabs stacked three layers on top of each other. Archaeologists carefully documented the structure and contents of the grave in situ and then retrieved it as a complete assemblage for study and reconstruction at the Petra Museum.

The particular furnishings and construction of the tomb indicate that the girl enjoyed a high social status, suggesting the existence of a hierarchicalhierarchical social structures in the Neolithic settlement of Ba`ja that were otherwise not evident in the relatively uniform funerary architecture of the site. Renovation project coordinator Marion Benz pointed out that the grave is of great importance to archaeologists because it has provided researchers with additional insights into the Neolithic population. In addition, it is of interest to local residents who identify with the cultural heritage of the region.

Archaeologists say that based on the discoveries made in the last three years, current ideas about Neolithic populations in the Middle East will have to be reassessed. The high technological standards, burial rituals and social organization in these early permanentlarge settlements in the southern Levant suggest extremely complex communities that were widely interconnected.

Roman Nemec

Sources: fu-berlin.de, thehistoryblog.com

9000-year-old necklace of a young girl in a Neolithic grave

Archaeologist Hala Alarashi and restorers Alice Costes and Andrea Fischer from the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart have managed to piece together the individual beads into a work of art

The grave of a girl, probably aged eight to 10, was exhibited in collaboration with researchers from Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan.

The Neolithic settlement of Ba`ja, surrounded by deep gorges, lies on a high plateau amid the mountains of the Petra region in southern Jordan