"Ice Pack" archaeologists race to preserve artifacts revealed by global warming

 Dr. Patrick Hunt of Stanford University, who is attempting to find Hannibal's route over the Alps, encountered not even snow flurries this season when his team began their work.  Dr. Hunt has directed Stanford’s Alpine Archaeology Project since 1994, conducting high altitude research in the Great St. Bernard pass between Switzerland and Italy. In 1996 he found the 9000 ft. high quarry for the Temple of Jupiter in the Fenetre de Ferret pass adjacent to the Great St. Bernard Pass and directed a team that found a Roman silver coin hoard in the Swiss Alps in 2003.

[Photo: Dr. Patrick Hunt examines a stone that may have been traversed by Hannibal's army accompanied by elephants in 218 BCE in the Great St. Bernard Pass between Switzerland and Italy.  Image courtesy of the Alpine Archaeology Project]

"This is the first summer since 1994 when we began our field excavations above 8,000 ft that we have not been inundated by even one day of rain, sleet and snow flurries," Hunt observed.

Dr. Hunt invited me to accompany him and his team into the Alps a couple of years ago, but I had to decline because of health concerns.  I certainly never imagined that global warming, as catastrophic as it is for the planet as a whole, would offer such an unprecedented opportunity to archaeologists seeking artifacts preserved at the higher elevations.


A team led by Norwegian archaeologists Trond Vihovde and Elling Utvik Wammer have discovered hundreds of items produced by pre-Viking cultures in the wake of a melting Juvfonna ice sheet in Norway.

Bows and arrows, specialised hunting sticks – used to drive reindeer towards archers – and even a 3,400-year-old leather shoe have been found at the site in the Jotunheimen mountains, home of the "ice giants" of Norse mythology. These finds have been logged with a GPS satellite marker before being taken for examination. From these measurements, archaeologists reckon people using hunting sticks – each about a metre long with a flapping piece of wood attached by connecting thread – were set up about two metres apart. They then drove reindeer toward hunters who needed to get within 60ft of an animal to have a chance of hitting one with an iron-tipped arrow.

Such a hunt would require 15 to 20 people, Piloe adds, indicating that Norway had an organised society around the start of the dark ages, 1,500 years ago. - The Guardian

The biggest problem now is that fragile artifacts, if not recovered and properly conserved, quickly deteriorate and even disintegrate.  We may not have enough "ice pack" archaeologists to reclaim these artifacts before they are gone forever.  

I fervently hope Dr. Hunt is successful in his search for evidence of Hannibal's crossing.  Perhaps he will at least find remains of some of the elephants since most died crossing the mountains.  I found the following video about Hannibal's war elephants produced by the BBC on YouTube.  I was surprised to learn in this video that the Carthaginians used to feed their elephants wine just before a battle to make them easier to enrage.  I'm not too sure that was necessarily a good thing since war elephants were so unpredictable.



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Stolen Hecate Bust Recovered

I'm truly grateful the police were able to recover this piece but can't help but feel outraged over the facts around its initial theft.

[Photo courtesy of Reuters]

A rare 9th century three-faced marble head of the Greek goddess Hecate was seized from a store in Rome's historic center after it was stolen by thieves last year, Italian police said on Wednesday.

The unusual bust was one of hundreds of stolen ancient artifacts ranging from large earthen jugs to small saucers that Italian police displayed after recovering them during various operations.

A probe at a small lake south of Rome led to the discovery of more than 500 miniature antiquities, while a Roman mosaic dating to the 4th-3rd century B.C. was seized after police stumbled across an Internet posting, hawking it for 55,000 euros ($77,060).

The bust of Hecate, the Greek goddess linked to witchcraft and the afterlife who is usually depicted with three heads, was found in a store near Rome's Campo dei Fiori square.

It had been missing since June 2007, when thieves made off with it from a Roman house after drugging the owner's family with sedatives. - More, Reuters India

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Artifacts ripped from Trajan's Villa recovered from wealthy engineer

Roman mosaics are among my favorite art forms so this article made me shudder.

"Police seized some 1,000 ancient artifacts from a wealthy Italian man's country house outside Rome that were stolen from one of Emperor Trajan's villas, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Authorities contend the artifacts, which were being used to decorate the man's weekend residence, were ripped off the walls of what is believed to be Trajan's hunting retreat in Arcinazzo Romano, a town in the countryside outside Rome.

Some were stolen from boxes of fragments that archaeologists had excavated from the villa but had left at the site of the ongoing dig, prosecutors told a news conference.

Pieces of ancient Roman mosaics were inserted into the man's basement floor and his fireplace and bathroom were decorated with other pieces, authorities said.

Many of the artifacts were damaged by glue that he apparently used to stick them to transparent display supports, said Marina Sapelli Ragni, Lazio's superintendent for archaeology. Restorers would try to repair the damage, she said.

Among the loot are pieces of marble that once covered the sprawling villa in the upper Aniene River valley in Lazio. The villa has only been partially excavated."

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Traces of Roman Superglue found on helmet from Xanten

Roman warriors repaired their battle accessories with a superglue that is still sticking around after 2,000 years, according to new findings on display at the Rheinischen Landes Museum in Bonn, Germany.

Running until Feb. 16, 2008, the exhibition "Behind the Silver Mask" presents evidence that the ancient adhesive was used to mount silver laurel leaves on legionnaires' battle helmets.

"It's a sensational find and a complete stroke of luck that we were still able to find traces of the substance after 2000 years," Frank Willer, the museum's chief restorer, told Discovery News.

Willer found traces of the superglue while examining a helmet unearthed in 1986 near the German town of Xanten, on what was once the bed of the Rhine.

"The helmet, which dates from the 1st century B.C., was given to the museum for restoration. I discovered the glue accidentally, while removing a tiny sample of metal from the helmet with a fine saw. The heat from the tool caused the silver laurel leaves on the helmet to peel off, leaving thread-like traces of the glue behind," Willer said.

Willer was amazed to discover that despite such a long exposure to water, time and air, the superglue did not lose its bonding properties.

He said that other Roman battle accessories kept by the museum have traces of silver decorations which most likely had been glued to the iron with the same adhesive and technique. Unfortunately, the objects are too deteriorated to find traces of the superglue.

However, the helmet unearthed at Xanten featured enough material to determine how the adhesive was made. If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!