Ancient wood, ropes discovered in Romania

Xinhua English

BUCHAREST, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Romanian archaeologists have discovered well-preserved wood and ropes of 3,000 years old at Beclean of Romania's northern Bistrita-Nasaud County, officials said on Wednesday.

The objects, found in the bed of a highly salted river near Baile Figa, have been well preserved due to the salted mud, said Valeriu Kavruk, curator of the Museum of the Eastern Carpathians based in Sfantu Gheorghe, central Romania.

The laboratory tests with Carbon 14 showed the objects dated from 1000 B.C., Kavruk said, adding that the Figa site represents "the most important archaeological discovery in the latest decades in South-Eastern Europe."

According to the curator, the importance of such a discovery resides not only in the fact that it is for the first time that wood and ropes made of ivy that old, very well preserved too, were found but also it is highly important such objects gave an idea about how salt was dug 3,000 years ago.

The specialists concluded that the salt blocks were cut not with hard tools as nowadays, but they were melted using water and then poured through the holes in the big block of salt.