Grave of the Middle East's Oldest Witch

A team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem excavates at Hilazon Tachtit cave in northern Israel. Last year, they discovered the 12,000-year-old remains of a female shaman, who was buried with an unusual collection of artifacts, including 50 tortoise shells. (Courtesy Leore Grosman)

The shells of 50 Mediterranean spur-thighed tortoises. Parts of wild boars, cows, leopards, gazelles, and stone martens. The wingtip of a golden eagle. A severed human foot. And a set of tools. What can this startling collection of artifacts found last year in a cliffside cave in northern Israel mean? "I think this is the burial of a shaman," says Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologist Leore Grosman. "It's an interpretation, of course. They didn't leave a note telling me." For the past 13 years, Grosman has been poring over every artifact and speck of dirt recovered from Hilazon Tachtit cave. Now she is trying to understand the story surrounding the 12,000-year-old remains of a female shaman, the first ever discovered in the eastern Mediterranean.


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this was some one very important with such things the tortoise reminds me of the I ching the tools are interesting but cant be confirmed without knowing what they look like or are for, could have been a hunter but female..interesting.

this could have been a matron, or a queen, or what ever they called them then.

there was first mother as leader in history or woman as supreme being, as the one who gave life. but with knowledge there came man as the seed which gave life to the female then the son who is the product of such life, future may be the daughter who is the next emanation...but this is a little to much preaching on my part.