An ancient belt buckle with a design of a sleeping two-hump camel has been unearthed in a 3,000-year-old cemetery in northern Iran.

Archeologists began a detailed study of the ancient buckle and its two-hump camel design soon after its discovery in the country's northern province of Mazandaran.

Since northern Iran has never been home to two-hump camels, the design on the ancient buckle suggests that the owner may not have been Iranian. It is possible that the buckle belonged to an immigrant from East Asia.

In previous excavations of the region, archeologists unearthed three skeletons with an ethnicity that differed from the native Iranian Arian race.

The discovery of the ancient buckle may now serve as an excellent guide for the archeologists, to assist them in finding out about the origin of the ancient immigrants.

NAT/CW/BGH