Exhibition: How Barbarian Loot Wound Up In The Rhine (German)

Die WElt ^ | 02/15/2008 | Peter Ditmar

[pierrem15]

See Above

[Cicero]

Gosh, that stuff is almost perfectly preserved. Click on the article picture to see more pictures of the loot.

[ConservativeMind]

Ping to you both.

[blam]

[WorkingClassFilth]

No way that picture is of the actual site. Are we supposed to buy the idea that this stuff has just sat there in a nice pile, in a river, undisturbed, for 1700 years and still looks like it’s just sitting in somebody’s aquarium? I wouldn’t buy that even if it were in the river since WWII as part of some lost looting booty.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

Global warming disturbed the river bottom.

[Blood of Tyrants]

That first pic HAS to be staged. No way an item can lay on the bottom of a river for 1800 years and not be covered with silt.

[Cicero]

Yes, I think you’re right. Matter of fact, that looks more like an aquarium tank with a diver in it than the Rhine. But it’s still surprising these objects look so fresh.

[pierrem15]

I was wondering about that. But if the river bottom was scoured by higher flow once in while, then the heavy metal objects would accumulate in piles.

It's also possible hat the photo was taken after a water jet was used to excavate.

In any case, the items found are amazing, including the bronze head of a horse cut from a sculpture.

[pierrem15]

Horse head cut from statue.

[dighton]

Count on it winding up once and for all with the Rhinemaidens.

[Verginius Rufus]

Isn't there something in the Nibelungenlied about gold being thrown into the Rhine by the Nibelungs? Maybe they can find that next.

[spanalot]

it does not look like a silty stream but you would think the stuff would be dispersed- even from fishing activity or anchoring.

[tracer]

So, they picked my pocket and tossed the evidence. No big deal....

[goldfinch]

bump for later

[wildbill]

Personally I’ve always wondered about the ‘lost eagles’ of the legions of Varros.

No one ever found battle sites or discarded weapons that would be expected from a major loss.

On the other hand, they could have like the British soldiers in ‘The Lost Patrol’ where you never see one of the fiendish desert warriors as the patrol is whittled down one by one.

[avid]

In the article they speculate that the loot that often got lost when the Germans had to cross the Rhine again on their way back, might be the source for the Nibelungen-Rhinegold tale.

[Verginius Rufus]

The site of Varus' disaster (the Teutoburger Forest or Teutoburgiensis saltus) was finally discovered a few yeears ago (in the 1990s I think)...objects dating to exactly the right time period were found. There was a popular article in Archaeology magazine not long after the discovery.

[wildbill]

Dang, I must’ve missed that. I’ll do a google. Thanks.

[SunkenCiv]

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