LOMBARDY, ITALY—La Brújula Verde reports that a hiker in 2017 noticed petroglyphs at the foot of the Pizzo Tresero glacier in Lombardy’s Stelvio National Park, nearly 10,000 feet above sealevel—the highest rock engravings yet found in Europe. Since their discovery, a team of researchers has documented 11 glyphs, which include geometric and spiral designs, human figures in a position resembling praying, and an animal representation that they believe may depict an equine. Based on the style of the petroglyphs, they have determined that artists carved them into the rock at different times throughout the Middle Bronze Age, between about 3,600 and 3,200 years ago. Glacier movement over thousands of years likely eroded other carvings. To read about the surviving garments of a man frozen in ice 5,300 years ago in the Italian Alps, go to “Ötzi’s Sartorial Splendor.”
(Courtesy Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca e della Città di Cortona; © DeA Picture Library/Art Resource, NY)
Letter from Vesuvius September/October 2023
Digging on the Dark Side of the Volcano
Survivors of the infamous disaster rebuilt their lives on the ashes of the A.D. 79 eruption
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(Courtesy Girolamo Ferdinando De Simone)
(Alamy Stock Photo)
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Features November/December 2024
The Many Faces of the Kingdom of Shu
Thousands of fantastical bronzes are beginning to reveal the secrets of a legendary Chinese dynasty
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Courtesy Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
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Courtesy the University of Manchester
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Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo
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Tomasz Stachura/Baltictech
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