The remains of mysterious creatures buried alongside humans with great respect have been discovered at over 600 ancient burial sites across 89 countries, surprising the scientific community.
According to Daily Mail, the bones of these mysterious creatures were found neatly placed next to human remains, as ancient people regarded them as “soul birds,” a sacred animal that accompanies the human soul to the afterlife.
This is not a strange creature but rather something you might encounter daily in your… kitchen: chickens.
The remains of the “sacred birds serving to escort souls” in the laboratory – (Photo: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY)
This research, based on a series of chicken remains from over 600 burial sites in 89 countries, including England, Italy, Turkey, Morocco, and Thailand, also indicates that this bird species was domesticated as far back as 3,500 years ago in Southeast Asia, later becoming widely raised in many countries.
However, it was not necessarily raised as livestock, as the research team led by Professor Naomi Sykes from the University of Exeter (UK) asserts. In many places, this “sacred creature” was not regularly used as a food source until the 3rd century AD, for example in England, but was used for ritual purposes.
Ancient tombs have preserved the bones remarkably well, facilitating genetic analysis – (Photo: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY)
“The early domesticated chickens were revered and honored as companions of humans” – the authors from a range of prestigious universities in the UK, Germany, and France – Exeter, Cardiff, Oxford, Bournemouth, Munich, and Toulouse – stated.
By 1,500 years ago, although chickens had been domesticated, they were still too rare to be considered food. Thus, they became sacred, appearing in ancient tombs and providing a fortunate opportunity for science, as chicken bones are quite fragile and were preserved in good condition thanks to the elaborate construction of these ancient tombs.
In the West, it wasn’t until the Romans dominated many lands and developed chicken farming for meat and eggs that chickens officially became a food source.
The oldest known chicken bone was found at the Ban Non temple from the Stone Age in central Thailand, dating back approximately 1,650 to 1,250 years BC.
This research has recently been published as two independent studies in Antiquity and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
