Who Were the Hasanlu Lovers? | Smartest Year Ever (Sept 16, 2025)

Two skeletons found in a 2,800-year-old embrace have been called the Hasanlu Lovers—but what do we really know about them? In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy explores the dramatic discovery at Teppe Hasanlu in northwestern Iran, where archaeologists uncovered a city frozen in time after its sudden destruction around 800 BCE.

What makes these two skeletons so captivating? Why did the nickname “lovers” stick? And how much of their story is fact… and how much is just our imagination projected onto the past?

This episode dives into the archaeology, the destruction of Hasanlu, and the cultural crossroads of the ancient Near East—while exploring the bigger question of how we tell stories about the dead.

Stay curious, stay clever—on our quest to become the world’s greatest conversationalists.

Sources:

• Cifarelli, M. (2014). Lovers, Friends, or Strangers? Interpreting the Hasanlu “Lovers.” Expedition Magazine, Penn Museum. https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/lovers-friends-or-strangers/
  

• Dyson, R. H., & Voigt, M. M. (1989). Hasanlu Excavations: An Archaeological View of the Iron Age in Northwestern Iran. Expedition Magazine, Penn Museum. https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/hasanlu-excavations/
  

• Muscarella, O. W. (1988). The Hasanlu Lovers: Archaeology, Interpretation, and Cultural Perception. Near Eastern Archaeology.
  

• Metropolitan Museum of Art. (n.d.). Hasanlu in the Iron Age. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/hasanlu-in-the-iron-age
  

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Music thanks to Zapsplat.