When I was a child I used to tag along with my father on hunting trips and we would sometimes come across Indian ruins. As a child I was amazed that some of the ruins were those of little houses and I couldn’t figure out how adults could live in them until one day my father explained to me that people back then were smaller than people today. Suddenly, the little ruins all made sense to me! Yes it was a “revelation” to me lol 🙂

Bes, the ancient Egyptian dwarf god

What I didn’t know at the time was just how little some of these ancient people actually were. Anthropologist and Author Dr Susan Martinez has written about the little people in one of her books entitled, “The Lost History of the Little People.” This is actually an amazing book for the study of the little people as she covers them all over the world. This brings me to the subject of this post and the little people found in Iran.

Back in August of 2005 a tiny mummified body was unearthed in the ancient Persian village known as “Makunik.” Persia is the name modern Iran used to be called. The discovery caused an international sensation and researchers who examined the mummified remains concluded it was the remains of an adolescent dwarf. But this was not the only thing found because excavations at the site of the village revealed what appeared to be the ruins of an entire town for such little people!

Discovery of the mummy and town came after 2 months of illegal excavation in the historic Gudiz Fort in Kerman Province, Iran. The site is near the Iranian town of Shahdad which dates back to the time of the Sassanid Empire which existed from 224 AD to about 651 AD. The Sassanid Empire was the last Persian Empire before the coming of Islam to Iran/Persia.

Smugglers took the tiny mummified body and attempted to sell it on the black market in German for 3 million dollars. The tiny mummy is about 25 cm tall (9.8 inches). It’s body is still covered in its skin and forensic investigators estimate the tiny individual was between 16-17 years old.

Long before this discovery there were rumors in the area of a lost city of little people. Controversy erupted when some researchers claimed the individual was 5000 years old and did not date to the Sassanid Empire period. And that controversy continues even today.

The Iranian Mummy from Makhunik

The ruins at Shahdad are strange to say the least. The houses, tools, furnaces, and other artifacts are onl.y big enough to have been used by little people. We do not know what happened to these people as they appear to have disappeared without a trace. The buildings at this site have low walls not suitable for taller people outside of dwarfs.

Mainstream archaeologists were very quick to debunk everything about this find. They claimed that the walls at the site were 80 cm tall (31.5 inches) but were originally 190 cm tall (6.2 ft). Other researchers said the mummy proves nothing and certainly does not indicate that the ancient people of this site were dwarfs.

Several months after the discovery reports began to claim that the mummy was only about 400 years old and was that of an adolescent dwarf or a premature infant mummified by “natural processes.”

Olmec altar supported by two dwarf gods

Legends of such little people are found all around the world on every continent. Dr Martinez claims that once there was a race of little people and she points to the dwarf gods of the Mexico and Peru as well as the Menhune of Hawaii, the African pygmies, et al. She also presents evidence of tiny coffins, tiny tunnel networks, the low doorways made by the American mound builders, pygmy sized huts, etc. She also cites many legends of little people from various cultures around the globe.

These little people, Martinez believes, were highly intelligent and spiritual people and when they were created they were forbidden from interbreeding with other hominid species such as Ardipithecus and Australopithecus. But, that Divine Law didn’t last long as some of the little people did begin to interbreed with these other hominids.

Martinez believe these little people were the progenitors of civilization and one of the ancient human ancestors of modern humans. These people were highly intelligent and they interbred with ancient human ancestors producing hybrids. Martinez identifies Ardipithecus as animal-man, man without a soul. She then identifies Australopithecus as man with a soul and as being the hybrid result of interbreeding between Ardi and the little people!

Martinez also explores the many tales of the Irish Leprechauns and says that the mounds found in America and other places were not burial sites but the homes of some of the little people. Mainstream archaeology has passed all this off as myth and criticized the work of Martinez heavily. But, they still can’t explain the evidence, the legends, the myths that are global and timeless pertaining to such little people!

From what I can gather these little people stood about 3 ft (91.4 cm) tall in Martinez’s estimation.  Ardipithecus lived about 4.4 mya in East Africa.  This homind species stood about 3-4 ft tall.  In terms of size, then, Ardi and the little people were all about the same size.  So my point being that being 3 ft tall was NOT that unusual.  In fact, it was the norm at one time!  Somehow we need to get beyond our own ethnocentrism and stop perceiving of our ancient ones as being the same size people are today or the land masses being in the same places they are today!  We need to break out of the box and think OUTSIDE of that box!

Many Native American ruins consist of small houses or huts and frankly a person 6 ft tall would have a very hard time living in such dwellings.  Even people 5 ft tall would!  It would be like living in a small closet!  Somehow I do not think that is how very ancient people lived at all!  They didn’t live in closets!!  They were smaller than we are today and to them these dwellings were likely moderate to large dwellings.  And this brings me to an important point that I will mention again:

When we seek to understand ancient cultures or cultures different from our own we need to try to see the culture thought THEIR eyes, not our own.

Anthropology and archaeology abound with theories and hypotheses.   Believe me there is no shortage of either!  But when it comes to stone cold FACTS, honestly, we don’t have a lot.  What we have is a lot of speculation that turns out to sometimes be wrong and at other times right.  I think may times we are far to eager to summarily dismiss finds and alternative hypotheses only to find later that they were far closer to the facts and truths than we believed.  Case in point?  NEANDERTHALS!  The more FACTS we learn about the Neanderthals the more we are forced to realize that they were far from being the club carrying, brutish, quintessential “caveman” we’ve tried to make them out to be!!  I have the feeling the SAME is true about the LITTLE PEOPLE too!

I’ll be writing more about the Little People in the future so stay tuned……….