Archaeology museum rediscovers 6,500-year-old skeleton in storage

6,500-year-old human remains are displayed at the The Penn Museum, part of the University of Pennsylvania, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2014, in Philadelphia. (AP)

PHILADELPHIA – An archaeology museum in Philadelphia has made an extraordinary find — in its own storage rooms.

The Penn Museum, part of the University of Pennsylvania, announced Tuesday that it had rediscovered a 6,500-year-old human skeleton believed to have been a man at least 50 who stood 5 feet, 9 inches tall. The remains were originally excavated from southern Iraq around 1930.

Museum officials said the complete human skeleton had been stored in a coffin-like box but with no trace of identifying documentation.

Skeletons of the same time period, particularly complete remains, are extremely rare, the Penn researchers said. They hope a skeletal analysis will reveal more about the population's diet, stresses and ancestral origins.

University of Pennsylvania researchers working with a team from the British Museum first unearthed the remains at the site of Ur, an ancient city near modern-day Nasiriyah.

Dr. Janet Monge, the curator-in-charge of the anthropology section of the Penn Museum, had known the skeleton was in storage, but researchers weren't able to determine its significance until a records digitization project was undertaken, officials said.

The effort enabled the researchers to link the skeleton to the field records of Sir Leonard Woolley, whose joint team excavated the site where it was uncovered.

The burial that produced the skeleton was cut into deep silt, indicating that the man had lived after an epic flood, leading Penn researchers to nickname their re-discovery "Noah."