BBC World Histories Magazine - 03.2020

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THE BRIEFING History Headlines

LAKE VÄTTERN SWEDEN

Norse code

The inscription on a ninth-century runestone may reveal

Viking fears of climate catastrophe. Raised near Lake

Vättern in Sweden, the Rök stone, which bears the world’s

longest runic inscription, is thought to be a memorial to a

slain son. Experts from three Swedish universities

collaborating on a new study suggest that “the inscription

deals with an anxiety triggered by a son’s death and the

fear of a new climate crisis similar to the catastrophic

one after [AD]536”, when volcanic eruptions led to crop

devastation and mass hunger.

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MACHU PICCHU PERU

Cultural vandalism

A group of tourists damaged the 15th-century Incan

citadel of Machu Picchu in January. Authorities

asserted that six individuals – from Argentina, Chile,

Brazil and France – entered a restricted section of

the Temple of the Sun at the Unesco World Heritage

site, where a wall was damaged; faeces were also

subsequently detected there. Five of the tourists were

deported, while the sixth was prosecuted and found

guilty of damaging Peru’s cultural heritage, receiving

a fine and a suspended prison sentence.

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IRAQ

Of gods and kings

Ten extremely rare Assyrian carvings have been found

by Kurdish Iraqi and Italian archaeologists along the

banks of an ancient canal system in northern Iraq. The

2,700-year-old stone reliefs are believed to have been

created during the reign of King Sargon II. The intricate

decoration – rarely found outside Assyrian royal resi-

dences – is thought to depict the monarch watching

a procession of Assyrian gods.

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The Temple of the Sun at the Incan citadel of Machu Picchu,

Peru, damaged by tourists in January

Stone reliefs dating from c700 BC, found

along an ancient canal system in Iraq

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Runes on the Rök stone may provide

evidence of Viking fears of a repeat of

a sixth-century climate catastrophe

(^2) MEXICO CITY MEXICO
Plunder proven
A 2kg gold bar (below) unearthed in Mexico City four
decades ago has been confirmed as being composed
of Aztec gold plundered by Cortés’ Conquistadors.
New fluorescent X-ray chemical analysis of the ingot,
discovered during constr uc tion work in downtown
Mexico Cit y in 1981, revealed that it was cast in
1519–20 as Spanish troops retreated after a battle
for the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, the ruins of which
lie under Mexico City. The Conquistadors are known
to have made bars with gold objects from the Aztec
treasur y, to make them easier to ship back to Europe.
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