Remembering Delia

I visited Ostuni for the chance to meet Delia; turned out to be quite a moving experience.
She was a girl of about 20 who died in an advance state of pregnancy about 28000 years ago according to the consensus of various scientific disciplines. She was buried on her side in a carefully excavated stone trench in a grotto in the valley below.
She had been adorned with bracelets on her wrists, (made from shells of sea snails, whelks, cowrie, and the canine of a deer,) and an intricate skullcap of over 600 shells sewn together and painted with red ochre, (similar to the one carved onto the slightly older Venus of Willendorf.) At her head and feet small statues representing female goddesses were placed as well as offerings of Aurochs and horses.
She was laid down on her side with with one hand under her head and the other on her tummy and there she rested until late last century when the cave was excavated and her remains exhumed. Her bones and those of her unborn infant are laid out in the convent / museum together with a plaster cast showing how she was found.
The staff have presented a great deal of background information about those cold times between two ice ages which gives the visitor an appreciation of the life Delia must have led and which makes it all very poignant. It could have been yesterday.
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One of the nun's cells has been left as it would have been when inhabited, albeit without furniture.Read more