Archaeologists & 5,000-Years-Old Empty Leather-Sack

LONDON, (CAIS) -- After discovering a straw basket and a leather sack in the grave of a child in Burnt City, archaeologists opened the sack carefully hoping to find something special inside, but they found themselves faced with an empty sack!

“Two straw baskets with a leather sack inside one of them were unearthed from the grave of a 5,000-year-old child during the archaeological excavations in Burnt City. Except for the bottom part of the basket, the rest was remained intact. These articles were the only things which were discovered in the grave of this child” said Mansour Sajadi, head of excavation team in Burnt City.

Since the head of the leather sack was sewed and it was not clear what was hidden inside, archaeologists decided to open it hoping that they would find something in it.

“We asked for the help of restoration experts of Iran’s National Museum to open the leather sack and they came to help us in doing this. Although they did their best to cause no harm to the sack, some parts were damaged during the process. Anyway, the sack was finally opened but to our surprise, there was nothing inside”, added Sajadi.

Why this empty sack was closed is still an unanswered question for archaeologist. However, some archaeologists in Burnt City believe that the leather sack might have contained an organic material which has vanished over time.

“Anyway, the leather sack was restored and now it is being kept in a special safe place. Next year, an Italian archaeological team is to come to Iran and a small piece of the sack will be sampled by them to be studied in Italian laboratories in order to find out what was inside the sack,” explained Sajadi.