Deep in the mountainous forests of Southeast Asia lies a millenary - onetime closed book that is only beginning to be unraveled by modern research .
More than 100 deep 1,000 - year - old monumental stone “ jar of the dead ” have been identify across 15 sites in Laos . Though it ’s believed that they may have once been used to swallow up the utter , nobody knows for sure their original determination or anything about the people who once brought them there .
" These fresh sites have really only been visited by the occasional Panthera tigris huntsman . Now we ’ve rediscovered them , we ’re hoping to build up a clear picture about this civilisation and how it disposed of its bushed , " said Ph.D. bookman Nicholas Skopal in astatement .
" But why these sites were chosen as the final resting place for the jars is still a mystery . On top of that , we ’ve got no evidence of occupation in this region , " add archaeologist Dougald O’Reilly .
Researchers with theAustralian National Universityexcavated 137 stone jars in amount , along with in an elaborate way cut up discs place around them believed to have been used as interment marking . But some of these discs were placed facedown , lending further machination to the mystery .
" cosmetic cutting is relatively rare at the jarful land site and we do n’t sleep with why some discs have animal imagery and others have geometric design , " articulate O’Reilly .
Also found alongside the jarful were Iron Age artefact such as cosmetic ceramics , deoxyephedrine beads , iron tool , and other instrument used for make clothing .
" Curiously we also found many miniature jars , which calculate just like the giant jars themselves but made of clay , so we ’d eff to know why these people represented the same jars in which they placed their dead , in illumination to be buried with their stagnant , " sound out O’Reilly .
Altogether , the archaeologists note that the discovery precede to a bigger reason of what they consider are burial jar , adding a bigger distribution range of mountains than previously thought .
" We ’ve consider similar megalithic jars in Assam in India and in Sulawesi in Indonesia so we ’d like to investigate possible link in prehistoric culture between these disparate regions , ” said O’Reilly .
It ’s believed thatjar burialwas practiced as early on as 900 BCE and live until the 17thcentury CE . grounds of the burials has been found across the eastern part of the reality , from India and Indonesia to Lebanon , thePhilippines , and Egypt . The dead would be buried in a flexed position on their side in large stone or Henry Clay jars alongside other goodness . Though specific practices varied from civilization to culture , it is generally believed that jounce entombment were used as a form of secondary burying . In many ancient polish , demise was seen as a gradual transition from the animation to the bushed . To honour this tradition , bodies of the asleep would be laid out shortly after death so that mob member could detect the decomposition process . After a certain amount of time , the body would then be inter into a jar and buried in the Earth .
