VALDARO (Italy), Feb 13: Italy won’t split up its Stone Age `lovers’.

In a Valentine’s Day gift to the country, scientists said they were determined to remove and preserve together the remains of a couple buried 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, their arms still wrapped around each other in an enduring embrace.

Instead of removing the bones one-by-one for reassembly later, archaeologists plan to scoop up the entire section of earth where the couple was buried, they said.

The plot will then be transported for study before being put on display in an Italian museum, thereby preserving the world's longest known hug for posterity.

“We want to keep them just as they have been all this time --together,” archaeologist Elena Menotti, who announced the discovery a week ago, said.—Reuters