The trading vessel was carrying an extremely valuable cargo of tin and hundreds of copper ingots from the Continent when it sank.

Experts say the ”incredibly exciting” discovery provides new evidence about the extent and sophistication of Britain’s links with Europe in the Bronze Age, and reveals the remarkable seafaring abilities of the people during the period.

Archaeologists have described the vessel, which is thought to date back to about 900BC, as being a ”bulk carrier” of its age. The copper and tin would have been used for making bronze, the primary product of the period which was used in the manufacture of weapons, tools, jewellery, ornaments and other items.

It is believed that the copper – and possibly the tin – were being imported into Britain and originated in a number of different countries throughout Europe, rather than from a single source, demonstrating the existence of a complex network of trade routes across the Continent. It is the first time tin ingots from this period have ever been found in Britain, a discovery which may support theories that the metal was being mined in the south-west at this time. If the tin was not produced in Britain, it is likely it would have come from the Iberian Peninsula or Germany.

The wreck was found in between eight and 10 metres of water in a bay near Salcombe, south Devon, by a team of amateur marine archaeologists from the South West Maritime Archaeological Group. In total, 295 artefacts have so far been recovered, weighing more than 84 kilograms.

The cargo recovered includes 259 copper ingots and 27 tin ingots. Also found was a bronze leaf sword, two stone artefacts that could have been slingshots, and three gold wrist torcs, or bracelets.

The team has yet to uncover any of the vessel’s structure, which is likely to have eroded away. But experts believe it would have been up to 12 metres long and up to 1.8 metres wide.

The artefacts are to be handed over to the British Museum next week. They will be independently valued and the museum will pay the team for the items.

ANI

A week before Christmas, Magnus Bladh of the Ottenby bird station, located on Öland’s southern cape, was strolling along the beach with a colleague when he saw something he’d never seen before.

“Temperatures were below freezing and there was a light wind, but it was very cold! In the seaweed we noticed at least 200 large ice balls,” he said in a report to Swedish meteorological agency SMHI.

“The balls varied in size but the biggest ones were quite large, some larger than a football.”

What mystified Bladh was that the balls were resting on the west side of a bed of seaweed, even though the prevailing winds were from the east.

When Bladh and his colleagues later broke open one of the ice balls, they discovered that it consisted of a 2 to 5 centimetre thick shell of ice, which covered a core of soft, wet snow.

According to SMHI, the ice balls likely form when rolls of light snow are blown from the shore into water which is at or just below freezing, but fails to form uniform ice due to strong winds.

The rolls of snow are then tossed about in the chilly waters, where wave action eventually shapes them into balls of ice.

“It’s hard to say just how common ice balls are, since we are reliant on witness reports,” SMHI spokeswoman Alexandra Ohlsson told The Local.

A review by SMHI of weather conditions on southern Öland in the days leading up to Bladh’s ice ball discovery revealed that temperatures in the area were generally below freezing, with snowfall, and winds from the north and northeast averaging 50 kilometres per hour.

According to SMHI, it was possible that rolls of snow near the shore remained soft due to warmth emanating up from the ground, which could have then been blown into the water by the strong winds.

Once formed, the balls likely came back to shore and, rather than floating out to open water, remained there due to a change in sea conditions in the days before the ice balls were discovered. Water levels sunk several decimetres between December 17th and December 18th when Bladh and his colleagues found the ice balls lying on the shore.

Beside’s Bladh’s discovery, SMHI’s website only mentions two other reported instances of ice balls being discovered in Sweden since the 1950s.

thelocal.se

The woolly rat, an over-sized vegetarian rodent, measures 82 cm long and weighs in at 1.5 Kg. Its size makes it amongst the largest species of rat known anywhere in the world.

The creature was discovered by an expedition team filming for BBC program Lost Land of the Volcano.

But the large rat is only one of dozens of new creatures found in the shadow of the Bosavi volcano. The team also found scores of strange spiders and around 20 species of insect.

“Highlights include a camouflaged gecko, a fanged frog and a fish called the Henamo Grunter, so named because it makes grunting noises from its swim bladder,” Steve Greenwood, series producer for Lost Land of the Volcano, said. The fanged frog is only one of some 16 new frogs discovered.

The area in which the animals were found is particularly inaccessible and the team spent several weeks scaling the 2,800 meter summit with the help from local trackers.

(Agencies)

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