Centuries Old Skeleton Discovered At Penn Museum
By Michelle Durham
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- It's not every day you discover a centuries old skeleton where you work, but that is exactly what happened recently at the Penn Museum.
Archeologists and anthropologists there did not have to go far for the find.
Keeper and Associate Curator of the Physical Anthropology section of the Penn Museum Janet Monge says they have always known he was here in the museum, just not his precise location.
What do they know about this man?
"He was a healthy person. He probably was a very strong person in the sense that the muscles that attach to his bone really show him to be in very, very good physical shape."
He was excavated from Ur in Southern Iraq in the late 1920's. Archeologist Dr. William Hafford says this is an important discovery.
"Archeologically it is important. The period he comes from, it is a movement toward cities. We don't understand it that well. That's why samples from Ur are so important."
They are not sure if he will ever be placed for public display, although both Monge and Hafford say that is not out of the question.
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