Reggio Calabria, Calabria

At Romito Cave, a plaster cast showed two skeletons together. A woman held a young man whose body showed severe dwarfism.

A few days later, I drove to the Archaeological Museum in Reggio Calabria to see the original remains.

The gallery was quiet. White walls, soft light. A replica of the carved stone from the cave showed the aurochs. Below it, inside a glass case, lay the skeletons. The bones were yellowed. Dark soil still clung to them.

The young man’s head rested against the woman’s shoulder. Her arm lay around him. It was not tight. It was simply there.

His bones were short and compressed.

After death, their bodies were placed this way.

Archaeologists labeled them: Romito 1 and Romito 2.

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