Objects Found In The Ice As the glaciers melt, and snow and ice turn to water and evaporate, many secrets are coming into the light. I know I am excited to see what we find next. The finds range from hand made objects to even human bodies. One thing is for sure, everything which is found enriches our knowledge of history. Everything found is exciting but as with everything, some things are considered more interesting than others. One of the greatest finds of all time was the find of a well preserved body of a man who seemed to be a hunter. He has been named Otzi. Thanks to this accidental find by a couple of tourists who thought they had found the victim of an accident or maybe a murder victim, the authorities were called and then it was realized this was a very old body, about 5,000 years old to be exact. The man had died around 3230 B.C. and became a mummy by natural forces. He got his assigned name because he was found in the Otzial Alps. He was believed to have been murdered because of his wound, including arrow wounds. He must have died at a time after the attack because he still had something on him which would have been considered precious, which was a copper axe. Scientists were able to discern his diet. We learned a lot from this mummy and probably are still learning. One thing which amazes me is the fact when we find very old objects they can be so well made when they had to be all handmade. One of the things was a mitten from the Vikings. It was corroded by time, but one can imagine when it was new it looked just like a mitten today. In case anyone cares, it was a left handed mitten. The construction was unique in that it wasn’t made of one material but seemed to be made of scraps left over from other creations. Who would ever believe there could be expert workmanship connected to a wooden peg. Yet a couple have been found which were ornately fashioned. I have to wonder why so much effort went into their construction? When I saw them I thought to myself this could be misidentification. They weren’t considered very old when they were found, and it was thought they were from sometime in the 18th century. They sort of looked like what a scroll would have been wrapped around but are only about 3 inches long. Just recently an arrow was found sticking out of the melting snow. It was still extremely straight, but if there were any feathers on it they had disintegrated. The arrow was found sticking out of the ice in Norway. When it was dated, the date surprised the archaeologists because of its age. It was dated to 4,000 years ago. Archaeologists have formed a group there named Secrets of the Ice. The arrow was found on Mount Lauvhoe. Another find which has also been dated at around 4,000 years old produced not one but a few different things. The objects were found in a cave like area in Switzerland. The area was near a glacier. It might have been covered by the glacier at one time. In there were two bows with arrows, also a container containing flour. The container was made of wood, circular with a flat side. Why were these objects left, they had a lot of value in those times? Did the owners meet with some terrible fate? Sometimes more modern objects pop out of the ice. One American plane was flying over the ice and disappeared. This sort of reminds me of all the planes which have disappeared over Alaska. Anyway, it had crashed in 1946 and was eaten by the ice and disappeared until it popped out again in 2012. It wasn’t an ancient find, but it was an unusual one. When ice melts it doesn’t play favorites. Something coming out can be truly ancient like dinosaur fossils or fairly new, something from the last two hundred years or even newer. Battles leave a lot behind, and in places where battles have taken place and the fields have been covered with ice, fairly recent objects can get exposed. Things even more dangerous however are covered with ice and no one wants to see them exposed. I am talking about a former nuclear base we had in Greenland for example. It is not exposed yet, but it looks like it could be. I am talking about Camp Century which was built on a sheet of ice and later abandoned. Many believe there could be dangerous waste products there. Let’s hope we don’t find out. The Iron Age is said to have existed from 1,000 B.C. to roughly 500 A.D. A pair of skis from that time were found over a period of a few years, peeking out from the melting ice, even the bindings to attach them were still there. You have to wonder how someone lost them. Near that site something else from the same time period was found and it was somewhat larger. It was a wooden sledge. It is amazing it was still in one piece, but a shoe was found in Norway, in the ice, which is at least 3,000 years old. It is on the small side and could be a ladies or have belonged to a young person. What I found even more amazing was the fact it had laces. I am not sure, but to me it looked like one laced up the back of the shoe. Arch supports didn’t come around until thousands of years later. A sandal with an intricate design was also found peeking out of the ice. It was deemed to be a lot more recent, dating back to around 300 A.D. It seems arrows and bows have a long history as proven by one find where an arrow shaft was found. It was also found in Norway and came peeking out of the ice one day. It has been dated at an incredible 6,100 years old. Many of the things found in Norway which had been under the ice are found at Langfonne, in the Jotunheimen mountain range. One has to wonder how many objects we are currently dropping into glaciers, frozen lakes and such which will be found in the future. Some might say glaciers will no longer exist due to global warming, but who knows. I believe even if all the ice disappeared, it would come back again someday and still cover many lost objects.
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