A major concern road planners have is encountering an impediment along a planned thoroughfare. Everything may seem fine on maps and surveys. But, as crews excavate below the surface, surprise elements can arise. This is particularly true for hidden historic obstacles. Those can shut down and/or reroute entire projects....
An example happened on Interstate 44 in eastern Missouri. As planners were finalizing the I-44 interstate outside of St. Louis, they realized that completion of the route would destroy an area known to have been a habitat for prehistoric mastodons. Those elephant-like creatures roamed the ancient Missouri landscape millions of years prior. The bones of several full-sized mastodons had even been uncovered in the area.
Word got out. Before the destruction, clearing and paving could take place, citizens petitioned then-Senator Kit Bond to save the rocky and forested area. He did. The revised interstate made a large curve to avoid the area in question. Today, it’s home to Mastodon State Park.
Folks in the Czech Republic might soon experience a similar situation. This time it’s a result of a discovery made last year while a road crew was surveying the expanded route of the D35 Motorway in the eastern part of that country.
The landlocked Czech Republic, formerly known as Bohemia, is bordered by Austria, Germany, Poland and Slovakia. It’s also smack dab in the middle of a route once called “The Amber Road.” That was a major trade path stretching from the Baltic Sea to Rome. It was named the Amber Road due to the significant amount of valuable amber transported along with other prized trade goods.
The allure of amber then and now is significant. Tens of thousands of years ago, sap from ancient coniferous trees surrounding the Baltic Sea would fall. The sap ended up in water, floated to the surface and was found by humans. Today, polished amber jewelry and souvenirs are still a treasured item of trade, particularly in Poland. A few years ago, the Polish Mint actually embedded an amber jewel into some commemorative 10 Zloty silver coins.
The recent halting of work on the Czech highway is a result of road crews uncovering the remains of an ancient village. That term may be an understatement. It’s more akin to a city.
Archeologists were called in to establish exactly what was uncovered. What they found was an entire settlement of building foundations, an early religious sanctuary and even an early coin minting operation and production center complete with coin dies. The variety of artifacts suggest the town was a major center for long-distance trade routes. In addition to silver, substantial numbers of gold coins have been found. So far, 22,000 bags loaded with gold, silver, ceramics and amber have been amassed.
One of the archeologists working the site dates the Celtic village to around 200 B.C. How and if the find will affect the planned route of D35 waits to be seen. However, given that this find has been described as, “one of the largest collections of artifacts ever retrieved in Bohemia,” it would be tragic merely to pave over it as if it never existed.
Another find, some 1,000 miles away, may not stop a road but have put a homeowner’s plans for a patio on hold. Last month, while clearing an area to build a new patio terrace, a homeowner in Rebild, Denmark accidentally uncovered the region’s largest-known Viking Age silver hoard.
According to archaeologists at the Museums of North Jutland now handling the excavation, the find includes riches reflecting the 10th-century Viking economy. At that time, silver was the recognized bullion currency based on the weight of an object. Foreign coins and jewelry were routinely chopped into fragments, known as "hack silver" or melted down for other transactions.
To date, the planned patio site has produced silver bars, coins and Viking bracelets weighing a whopping 41 pounds. Also found was a small Thor's hammer amulet proving the Viking origins. In weight alone the silver eclipses previous Danish Viking finds.
Illustrating the extensive trade territory connecting the Vikings world to the Islamic Western Europe worlds are coins in both Arabic and English. Of the coins and objects found, over 300 were still in a large and intact ceramic vessel. The rest were scattered in nearby soil.
Just why the hoard was buried remains a mystery as does whether the treasure was hidden near a settlement, a trade route or something else. The final value of the find is also unknown but the silver value alone is over $30,000. Certainly, the historic value is many times that. Under Danish law, the treasure legally belongs to the state. However, the finder gets a payment based on the silver value plus an additional finder’s reward – surely more than enough to pay for a new patio.
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