More than 1,200 years ago, two tiny babies were laid to rest side by side in an abandoned Roman toilet channel in ancient Ephesos, Turkey. They were born too early, perhaps never drawing breath at all, and may have been twins. Yet whoever buried them wrapped them carefully in shrouds and placed them on a bed of earth they had carried from somewhere else—a distance that required real effort.
Archaeologists from the Austrian Archaeological Institute uncovered the infants in what was once a Roman concert hall, or odeion, built nearly 2,000 years ago near one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis. By the 8th and 9th centuries, the building had long been abandoned after a devastating fire. Its toilet channel had sat unused for centuries. But that forgotten space became, improbably, a place of peace.
"As soon as we discovered the burial, it was clear that this was not a case of simply disposing of the infant bodies, but rather a very thoughtful preparation of a final resting place," said archaeologist Lilli Zabrana.
The researchers believe the babies were born about six weeks premature. Among their remains, scientists found something extraordinary: a tiny extra rib growing from a neck vertebra, measuring just 5 millimeters long. This is only the second such bone ever found in an infant grave from an archaeological site. While harmless in adults who survive to adulthood, this rare feature in newborns is sometimes linked to developmental challenges.
Why weren't these babies buried in a proper cemetery? The researchers offer a possible explanation: In Byzantine Ephesos, only people who had been baptized could rest in consecrated ground. Babies in that era were typically baptized weeks after birth—a condition these tiny twins never met. So their parents chose the odeion, tucked inside the ancient temple's boundaries. "Did the site of the former sanctuary of Artemis still hold spiritual significance for the twins' parents at that time?" Zabrana wondered.
What the science confirms is that infant burials are rare, twin burials even rarer, and their hidden grave protected them for more than a thousand years.
"This discovery shows us how close ancient populations actually were to us," said bioarchaeologist Caroline Partiot, the study's lead author, "and that they cared for vulnerable individuals, contrary to many preconceived ideas."