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LiveScience
LiveScience
Kristina Killgrove

1,200-year-old infant burial found near famous Temple of Artemis in Turkey contains twins — one with an unusual extra rib

Top-down view of a tomb being excavated with two small human skeletons inside.

Archaeologists have uncovered a rare and unusual burial of premature twins in a 1,200-year-old tomb near the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Turkey. Although the burial was found in an abandoned latrine, researchers think the intention was to protect the babies in the afterlife.

"This interment was made in an unexpected and exceptional setting," Lilli Zabrana, an archaeologist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences who co-authored a new study detailing the discovery, told Live Science in an email. Burials previously discovered at Ephesus were made in a dedicated cemetery outside the boundaries of the ancient temple.

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