Some 400 years ago in the Austrian Alps, a crew of miners dawdled outside their work site perched between a jagged, snowcapped peak and a sparkling lake. They savored the sunlight and pine-scented breeze—the last fresh air they’d inhale for hours—and then entered a tunnel cut horizontally into the mountainside. After a quarter-mile walk, lit by oil lamps, the workers reached the tunnel’s end and resumed burrowing through sheer rock, searching for salt deposits. They were opening a new salt mine at the Hapsburg emperor’s request.
They hammered and chiseled, inching farther into the salt mountain above the town of Hallstatt. Every so often, they lit and doused a small fire, making the rock face brittle and easier to fracture. Finding more salt was imperative. The Hapsburgs used the valuable commodity to finance their banquets, palaces, and wars. As one of Europe’s richest salt sources, Hallstatt “was the treasure chest of the Hapsburg monarchy,” says Kerstin Kowarik, an archaeologist at Natural History Museum Vienna.
But the workers found no glittering salt at the end of this tunnel. Instead, they struck a wall of hardened mud and waste left by earlier miners—pickax handles, burned splits of wood, frayed rope, and salt pieces too puny to collect. They’d have to start a new tunnel elsewhere on the mountain. Someone had already gutted this sector of its salt.
Denne historien er fra January/February 2022-utgaven av Archaeology.
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Denne historien er fra January/February 2022-utgaven av Archaeology.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Digs & Discoveries - A Friend For Hercules - Archaeologists discovered a finely carved head depicting Apollo, god of the sun, music, and poetry.
While digging at the crossroads of the two main streets in the ancient city of Philippi in northern Greece, archaeologists discovered a finely carved head depicting Apollo, god of the sun, music, and poetry.
Digs & Discoveries - A Fortress Sanctuary - A sprawling 2,000-year-old fortress in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have included a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita.
A sprawling 2,000-year-old fortress in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have included a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita.
Like Cats And Dogs – Archeologist fund the skeleton of a male Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), a notoriously shy creature.
Оn the periphery of Zamárdi, an ancient lakeshore settlement in west-central Hungary, archaeologists uncovered a nearly five-foot-deep beehive-shaped pit with the skeletons of four adult dogs buried in successive shallow layers.
A Dynasty Born In Fire- How an upstart Maya king forged a new social order amid chaos
At the beginning of the Terminal Classic period (ca. A.D. 810-1000), many of the great kingdoms of the southern Maya lowlands-among them Tikal, Palenque, and Calakmul-were being abandoned or collapsing. For many years, scholars have assumed that most, if not all, the other kingdoms across the Maya world must have also been in steep decline.
Medical Malfeasance - Archaeologists uncovered two coffins during excavations of a nineteenth-century cemetery in Quebec City that provide evidence of the illicit practice of diverting corpses for the study of human anatomy.
Archaeologists uncovered two coffins during excavations of a nineteenth-century cemetery in Quebec City that provide evidence of the illicit practice of diverting corpses for the study of human anatomy. Starting in 1847, medical students were required to have practical experience studying human anatomy, but legal options to procure cadavers were limited
RISE AND FALL OF TIWANAKU
New dating techniques are unraveling the mystery of a sacred Andean city
Making a Roman Emperor
A newly discovered monumental arch in Serbia reveals a family's rise to power in the late second century A.D.
The Assyrian Renaissance
Archaeologists return to Nineveh in northern Iraq, one of the ancient world's grandest imperial capitals
Java's Megalithic Mountain
Across the Indonesian archipelago, people raised immense stones to honor their ancestors
THE SONG IN THE STONE
Located in a desert gorge in southern Peru, Toro Muerto is one of the richest rock art sites in South America. It includes at least 2,600 boulders bearing petroglyphs, many featuring figures known as danzantes who appear to be dancing.