Europe’s ongoing drought has shrunk rivers and lakes across the continent, revealing carved stone markers, some of which are more than 600 years old and display eerie warnings for future generations.
The “Miami Herald” reported that locals said the centuries-old boulders, known as “hunger stones”, reappeared last week as rivers in Europe ran dry due to drought conditions.
One “hunger stone” sits on the banks of the River Elbe, which flows from the Czech Republic into Germany. Business Insider reported that the boulder looks to have been established in 1616 and is etched with a warning in German which says “Wenn du mich seehst, dann weine”, a phrase which translates to “If you see me, then weep.”
In a 2013 study, a team of Czech researchers wrote that these boulders are “chiselled with the years of hardship and the initials of authors lost to history”, adding that the “basic inscriptions warn of the consequences of drought”.
“It expressed that drought had brought a bad harvest, lack of food, high prices, and hunger for poor people,” researchers wrote.
Andrea Toreti, a senior researcher at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, suggested that this dry spell could be the worst Europe has seen in the last five centuries.
Business Insider reported that at a news conference at the beginning of August this year, Toreti said that no other events in the past 500 years were “similar to the drought of 2018. But this year, I think, is worse”, Euronews reported. He added there was “a very high risk of dry conditions” continuing over the next three months.
According to the European Drought Observatory, 47% of Europe is in drought warning conditions, which means there is a deficit of moisture in the soil; another 17% is on alert, which means vegetation is stressed.
The lower water levels have also revealed a few other hidden relics of Europe’s past. The UK’s “Express” reported at the end of June this year that “two shipwrecks dating back to World War II emerged from the River Po in Italy as a result of low water levels”.
More recently, in late July, the drought-stricken Italian river revealed a previously submerged 1 000-pound bomb from World War II.
A local official told Reuters that the bomb was found by fishermen on the bank of the River Po due to a decrease in water levels caused by the drought.
Experts had to safely remove it.
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