Europe’s Rivers Recede – and History Resurfaces

The Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that Western Europe experienced its warmest June and July since records began. The average temperature reached 21.62C, while dry weather created conditions conducive to wildfires in several areas.

Parched European rivers caused economic losses, restricted shipping and led to outages at some nuclear power plants. But falling water levels also revealed archaeological artifacts and other remnants of the past that had long been submerged.

Bulgaria

Record-low water levels in the Danube in northern Bulgaria have uncovered the remains of what is believed to be a prehistoric mammoth. The discovery was made by a local resident near the village of Ryahovo.

Staff from the Regional History Museum in nearby Ruse identified a lower jaw, two tusks and a possible mammoth rib at the site. They plan to recover the remains and examine them more closely to determine their origin and age.

Museum director Nikolai Nenov believes the site may once have been a swamp where the animal perished thousands of years ago. The mammoth likely measured nearly 5 m (16 feet) and weighed 7–8 metric tons.

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Parts of the foundations of a bridge commissioned by Emperor Constantine I and ceremonially opened in AD 328 have also emerged. It connected the ancient city of Ulpia Oescus, near the present-day village of Gigen in northern Bulgaria, with Sucidava in what is now Romania.

More than 2 km (1.2 miles) long, it is considered one of the longest bridges of antiquity. It was likely largely destroyed around AD 367.

Serbia

Near the Serbian town of Prahovo, the wrecks of German warships from World War II have resurfaced. The vessels were scuttled by their own crews in the fall of 1944 during the Wehrmacht’s retreat from the Red Army.

The Germans intended to use them to block the shipping lane and hinder the Soviet advance upstream along the Danube. More than 80 years later, they continue to cause problems.

According to the European Investment Bank, the sunken vessels have long hindered freight transport, costing Serbia around €5m ($5.8m) a year.

Originally, around 200 vessels were sunk along a 5-km (3-mile) stretch of the river. Some may still contain ammunition and explosives, complicating efforts to recover them.

The wrecks became more prominent during the summer of 2022. With support from the European Union, Serbia launched a project to remove 21 vessels. The work is scheduled to continue until 2028, with the EU providing a €16m ($18.5m) grant.

Those that are too large to remove will remain on the riverbed and are to be sunk deeper so they do not obstruct shipping.

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Germany

Low water levels in the Elbe River near Pirna, close to the Czech border, have revealed a so-called hunger stone. Dozens of such markers can be found in European rivers, with dates engraved on their surfaces. The oldest inscription at Pirna dates to 1707.

The inscriptions marked previous low-water levels and served as warnings of the famine and hardship that could follow when the water fell low enough for them to emerge.

Hungary

On 29 July, the Danube’s water level in Budapest reached a record low of 23 cm (9 inches), exposing several remnants from World War II.

Perhaps the most notable find was a Wehrmacht motorcycle discovered in the mud near the Hungarian Parliament building. The DKW NZ 350-1 was manufactured by Auto Union from 1944 and was used primarily for reconnaissance and to transport orders, messages and maps. Around 12,000 were produced by the end of the war.

Human remains were also found beneath the motorcycle. According to the German organization Volksbund, they belong to two Wehrmacht soldiers. Identification tags were preserved with the bodies, which should make it possible to establish their identities. The remains will be buried at the German military cemetery in Budaors, near Budapest, where more than 16,000 German soldiers are buried.

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German Tellermine 35 anti-tank mines, parts of hand grenades and artillery ammunition were discovered in the area. The Hungarian Military History Institute believes that this section of the Danube may have served as a storage site for military equipment after the war.

New thermal springs were also found nearby and are now being investigated by experts. The discovery may help shed light on the behavior of groundwater.

Italy

In northern Italy, the historic royal customs house of Lignago has emerged from the waters of the Valvestino Dam near Lake Garda.

The building was constructed in the late 19th century on what was then the border between the Kingdom of Italy and Austria-Hungary. At the time, the northern part of the area around Lake Garda, including the town of Riva, was under the rule of Vienna.

When the dam was built in the early 1960s, the former customs house was submerged.

Slovakia

In early August, a 700-kg (1,543-pound) British air-dropped naval mine was discovered near the village of Virt, making it the largest bomb ever found on Slovak territory.

It was likely deployed there in 1944 during Operation Gardening, when the Royal Air Force mined the Danube in an effort to disrupt enemy supply routes.

Several security agencies assisted in its removal before it was detonated in a pit 5 m (16 feet) deep.

The wreck of the Wotan also emerged near Medvedov. During World War II, the vessel had been used to clear mines from a supply route serving Nazi Germany. It was sunk by a magnetic mine on 17 September 1944.

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