World’s largest collection of tusks discovered in 5,000-year-old tomb of ‘Ivory Lady’ in Spain

More than 270,000 delicate shell beads recovered from the nearly 5,000-year-old “Ivory Lady” tomb in Spain represent the largest collection of beads ever found in the world, according to archaeologists. The beads were part of elaborate dresses made out of linen and adorned with ivory and amber pendants, suggesting they were made for a select group of high-status women.

Archaeologists excavated a large tomb, known as the Montelirio tholos burial, between 2010 and 2011 at the Valencina mega-site, located 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) from Seville. Valencina is a large Copper Age settlement, and the tholos tomb was used from about 2800 to 2600 B.C. Within the tomb, archaeologists discovered eight skeletons, seven of which were female.

“This type of tomb is not common in Iberia,” Samuel Ramírez-Cruzado, a geoarchaeologist at the University of Seville in Spain, told Live Science in an email, and “it is not normal in Iberia that the majority of human bodies inhumated in a single place are female.”