The French Government agency, Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles Languedoc-Roussillon (DRAC-LR) has issued a statement on Ben Hammott’s tomb discovery.
The DRAC Commissioner of archaeology in the region, Jean-Pierre Giraud said, “This is certainly a very intriguing discovery, but it's just too early to tell how important it is. We need to do a full survey of the site to determine the age of the corpse and the other items in the tomb. The archeology department of the DRAC-LR will be carrying out an examination of the site as soon as access has been made possible.”
Bruce Burgess said, “Everyone has been asking about the excavation of the site, but the next step is just working out how to get in. The access into the burial chamber right now is limited to a small air shaft, far too small for Ben, let alone me, to enter. But plans are underway with the DRAC spelios for a full scale survey of the site to determine the best way in. Once that is done, we can get into the chamber and really examine the tomb.”
As most of you know, Ben was able to extract a few hair strands from the skull of the corpse, which underwent testing by the Paleo-DNA Laboratory at Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada. They too have just issued a statement about Ben’s discovery. Renee Praymack Fratpietro, the analyst who worked on the sample said:
“Like most ancient or degraded samples, we knew our best chance for successful results would be to focus our efforts on mitochondrial DNA. Once we obtained that information, we were able to determine a Middle Eastern maternal origin of the individual based on haplotyping information. After we found out where this hair sample came from, we realized the significance of this work.”
Producer, René Barnett, said: “This is a really intriguing result. The haplotype indicates a Middle Eastern ancestry of the corpse, which is rare to find in Europe. We can’t wait until we can get total access to the corpse and then do a full DNA test to determine the age and sex.”
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