The most sensational finds ever discovered in glaciers. The strangest things that have been found in ice

The ice of our planet holds quite a few secrets that we have yet to unravel. What was found is amazing, and only spurs interest for further searches.

giant virus

Researchers from the University of Marseille (France), together with Russian colleagues from the Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems, have found a new virus in the permafrost.

Ice Maiden Inca Ice Maiden, Peru

Three mummies were found, which, unlike the embalmed Egyptian "colleagues", were subjected to deep freezing. The body of a seven-year-old boy was also studied, but scientists have not yet decided to examine the remains of a six-year-old girl. Probably, it was once struck by lightning, which may affect the accuracy of the results of the study.

Most likely, three children were sacrificed, as evidenced by the artifacts next to them: gold, silver, clothes, bowls of food and an extravagant headdress made from white feathers of unknown birds.

Historians suggest that the children were chosen by the Incas for their beauty. In the course of previous studies, it was found that before they were sacrificed, children were fed “elite” foods for a year - maize and dried llama meat.

Mummy of Princess Ukok, Altai

This mummy was nicknamed the “Altai Princess” and it is assumed that Ukoka died in the 5th-3rd centuries BC and belongs to the Pazyryk culture of the Altai Territory.

Mummy of a boy, Greenland

Near the Greenlandic settlement of Kilakitsoq, located on the west coast of the largest island in the world, in 1972 a whole family was discovered, mummified by means of low temperatures. This boy was not even a year old when life left him. Scientists have established that he was sick with Down syndrome.

Iceman, Alps

The Similaunian Man, who was about 5,300 years old at the time of discovery, making him the oldest European mummy, was nicknamed Ötzi by scientists. Discovered on September 19, 1991 by a couple of German tourists during a walk in the Tyrolean Alps, who stumbled upon the remains of a Chalcolithic resident perfectly preserved thanks to natural ice mummification, he made a splash in the scientific world - nowhere else in Europe have they found the bodies of our distant ancestors.

Juanita from the Peruvian Andes

Thanks to the cold of the peaks of the Andes, the mummy was preserved very well and now it belongs to the Museum of the Andean Sanctuaries in Arikepa, but often moves around the world in a special sarcophagus.

Frozen Mammoth

On the islands of the Novosibirsk archipelago, they found the carcass of a female mammoth well preserved in the ice. In addition to soft tissues, the researchers got another valuable "gift" - the blood of a mammoth. It is not surprising, but it did not freeze at a temperature of -10 degrees, and scientists suggest that it was this feature that helped the mammoths survive in the cold.

Mammoth Yuka

The mammoth was found near the Laptev Sea and was named Yuka. Scientists believe that Yuka died (yes, experts are inclined to believe that it was a female) at least 10 thousand years ago at the age of two and a half years: her tusks were just beginning to erupt.

Fragments of Sigismund Levanevsky's plane found in the Arctic

The expedition of the Russian Geographical Society accidentally discovered fragments in Yamal that may belong to the H-209 aircraft of the pilot of the Main Northern Sea Route, Sigismund Levanevsky. The aircraft, along with the crew, disappeared without a trace in August 1937. No human remains have been found. Perhaps the pilots left the cockpit, but did not reach the people, Fandyushin suggested. He said that members of the Russian Geographical Society are planning to go on a new expedition in March-April to examine the find in detail.

Remains of World War I soldiers in the Alps

In connection with the melting of the ice, the soldiers of the First World War begin to emerge. In 2014, the remains of 80 soldiers who died during the First World War were discovered in the melted Alpine ice, almost all of them are well preserved, turned into mummies.

Together with them were found photographs of the war years, maps and even products that were perfectly preserved in the cold. The soldiers were given a real military funeral. Now the main task is to preserve this heritage.

Married couple

The remains of Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin were found in the Swiss Alps, in the glacier Zahnfleuran. The police confirmed their identities after a DNA test. The pair were found with a backpack, watch and a book. The couple had 7 years left, who, after two months of searching, were sent to foster families.

Frozen baby woolly rhinoceros

For the first time in the history of paleontology, Yakut paleontologists have found the partially preserved remains of a baby woolly rhinoceros buried under permafrost about 10 thousand years ago, which will help them understand how these animals survived in a harsh glacial climate.

The German pilot, whose remains were found by the Krasnodar search engines, turned out to be the famous pilot Horst Schiller. It was he who in September 1939 dropped the first bombs on Poland, starting World War II. But this is far from the first high-profile find by search engines in the Kuban, where the invaders built the Blue Line during the war - a solid system of fortifications on the Taman Peninsula, broken through by the Red Army only in the fall of 1943. Aleksey Koretsky, head of the Shield and Sword search organization, shows the Gazeta.Ru correspondent stands displaying things and shells found in the Kuban land.

- Basically, we have employees of the internal affairs bodies, the Krasnodar University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the penitentiary system, bailiffs. Of course, there are also civilian volunteers. Someone comes to dig up a helmet as a keepsake, someone from the bottom of their hearts to raise a fighter, to identify his relatives. And the metal that is exhibited here simply makes it clear the scale, shows at what cost the Victory was won.

- Helmets and shells are very poorly preserved ...

“Because it’s black soil, there’s a lot of fertilizer. The main excavations are taking place on the Blue Line, a system of German fortifications from Temryuk to Novorossiysk. Most of the five thousand fighters that the Shield and Sword have found over the years are found there. Basically, of course, the infantry.

How are names established?

“Mortal medallions with full names and addresses are very rare. It was considered a terrible omen to fill it, once it was filled, death was called. As a rule, mouthpieces were made from ebonite capsules for medallions, and the liners were thrown away. If we find a medallion, then this is one case out of a hundred. Here is one of them, 1943, the original.

(Aleksey holds out a laminated strip of paper, on which an address in the Saratov region is written in uneven handwriting, with errors. “Antonin Stepanov’s wife, surname Krasnov. Whoever finds this address, tell my wife that I’m not there.”)

- Any thing can help determine the name. For example, a spoon with scratched initials. On the hands there is a list of the division - we look who fought in this area. We find a fighter with the same initials, double-check at what line he died. Most of the time it matches.

We regularly apply for clarifications to the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense - from there the information comes in a timely manner. Military registration and enlistment offices began to respond to inquiries only two or three years ago, before that, in 90% of cases, we were ignored. When we set a name, we contact relatives.

— With the Germans too? I heard that Germany pays generously for the soldiers of the Wehrmacht.

- This is crazy nonsense, it is not clear who cultivated. In the 90s, maybe they paid. But we give the Germans without any money to the Volksbund (a German public organization, the full name is the People's Union of Germany for the care of military graves. - "Gazeta.Ru").

The ratio of German and Soviet deaths is approximately one to three.

The Nazis were in fortified positions, on the hills, and ours had to storm all the time. And when the Germans attacked in the summer of 1942, he did it with wedges, owned modern equipment at that time.

— The largest mass grave that you managed to find?

- 64 people, in the Crimean region. They were dragged into a large funnel by the hands - by the legs, either ours or the Germans. Specially graves were almost not dug, people were exhausted by battles. The corpses were thrown either into large funnels or dugouts. It happened that in one trench, especially the local population in the spring and autumn of 1943, they dumped everyone indiscriminately, sometimes sprinkled with lime or bleach.

— What things do you find most often on fighters?

Looting has always existed - both then and now. The most valuable things were stolen even then. Watches, penknives, pocket razors are often found among personal items. I remember a type-setting mouthpiece made of a death medallion figuratively decorated with colored plastic. Once I came across a wooden spoon, it was found in a German gas mask tank from our soldier. Very rarely, fighters used trophy tanks to carry food and store personal items.

Several times there were aluminum cigarette cases with the inscription "Death to the fascist invaders!", Made from the wing of an aircraft.

Paper practically does not come across, only if the remains lay in clay. So they found a party card, the surname in which they managed to make out with the help of experts from the expertise of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Red American boots are often found on our fighters. Or here's another - I was very surprised when I read "40% soybeans" on Lend-Lease stew in 1942. Be sure to write it down, let them know that even then we were stuffed with soy.

Among the rarest items is our glass capsule mine.

Looks like a small bottle. Inside is amatol - a mixture of ammonium nitrate and TNT, when you press the cork with your foot, an explosion was heard.

- Do the Nazis have the same set?

- Once a German found a box with a mirror - for heroin. In red aluminum tubes came across tablets of Pervitin - modern methamphetamine, a drug. What is destroying our youth now, the Germans had under the Third Reich. They found a water disinfectant in a plastic tube.

Sealed beer bottles come across, however, the drink leaked out through a rusted cork. Here is a tube of cream for frostbite of hands - you can even squeeze it out on the palm of your hand right now. Here is a Romanian helmet. She was found with a balaclava, inside even the remnants of hair were traces of maggots. And the Romanian had Soviet coins in his pockets. I stole for souvenirs.

In general, the Germans are the least of my interest. When the media began to spread the news about the found Horst Schiller, he was extolled as a "legendary personality", "an ace pilot of the Second World War." Yes, he is a scum, and he did not die in our land in vain!

What is legendary? The fact that he was the first to throw a bomb on Poland! Yes, so many people died from his bombs ...

- By the way, do you manage to establish under what circumstances this or that fighter died?

— Here is a unique photograph of one of the graves. Here the fighter lies at the bottom of the trench, his hands to the last squeezed the tourniquet, with which he tightened the rest of the leg torn off above the knee on the thigh. The leg was never found. Under the head, the remains of a backpack, a bowler hat, a horn, a glass was preserved - fellow soldiers poured alcohol into the mouth of a wounded comrade, ran further into the attack, planning to return for him. He didn't wait for help.
In the next picture, the fighter was covered with earth, he tried to get out to the last. Found at a depth of two meters.

What do you do with the remains then?

We're doing an exhumation. If the burial is doubtful - suddenly modern victims, then we call the investigators. As a rule, it is easy to determine by personal belongings, by cartridges, by a helmet. If there is an explosive object near the remains, we call the police, if there is an air bomb, we contact the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

In the Krymsky district, the administration gave us a room in the cemetery, where we put all the remains during the year. A solemn burial is held either on October 9, the day of the liberation of the Kuban, or on May 9. In some places, we leave the remains before burial in churches - the priests bless. At the mass grave "Hills of Heroes" near Krymsky, we bury the fighters every year.

And this July, as part of the Taman Bridgehead 2014 expedition, for the first time, a speedboat with the remains of a radio operator was discovered at a depth of six meters.

This is on the Tuzla Spit, on the very border with Ukraine. By law, a sunken boat with fighters is officially considered a mass grave, so we will not rebury it. Next summer we plan to descend again to the place of death, to install a sign with the name of the radio operator. An American anti-aircraft machine gun was raised from this boat, now it is in the Museum of Military Glory of Krasnodar.

- Do you often encounter "black diggers"?

- "Chernushniki" shaft worked throughout Russia. They frolic in earnest. The bones were broken with shovels, scattered around in such a way that it was impossible to establish where the German was, where ours was. They are interested in weapons, jewelry, rare orders. Even coins from the pockets of the fighters. Therefore, I support the recently adopted law restricting their activities.

Melted glaciers hide terrible and amazing things that have been hidden from the eyes of people for a long time.

Ice is a natural preservative, and it is able to store things, people and animals in its thickness for many thousands of years. As the ice melts, eerie finds are revealed. They attract scientists because they are able to tell about important secrets of the past.

Mummy of a boy, Greenland

Near the settlement of Kilakitsoq on the western coast of Greenland, in 1972, an entire family was discovered, mummified by means of low temperatures. The boy was not even a year old when life left him. Scientists have established that he was sick with Down syndrome.

Iceman, Alps

About 5,300 years old, the Similaunian Man is the oldest European mummy. The scientists named him Ötzi. Discovered on September 19, 1991 by a couple of German tourists while walking in the Tyrolean Alps. The remains are perfectly preserved thanks to natural ice mummification. The discovery made a real sensation in the scientific world, since nowhere else in Europe have they found the bodies of our distant ancestors that have ideally survived to this day.

Juanita from the Andes, Peru

The cold of the Andes mountain peaks kept the mummy in good condition. Now it is in the Museum of Andean Sanctuaries in Ariquepa. Juanita is often exhibited in various museums around the world, transporting her in a special sarcophagus.

Ice Maiden of the Incas, Peru

The mummy of a girl 14-15 years old was found on the slope of the Nevado Sabankaya volcano in Peru in 1999. Experts suggest that this teenager and several other children were selected for sacrifice because of their beauty.

Three mummies were found, which, unlike the embalmed Egyptian "brothers", were subjected to deep freezing. The body of a seven-year-old boy was also studied, but scientists have not yet decided to examine the remains of a six-year-old girl. Probably, it was once struck by lightning, which may affect the accuracy of the results of the study. Most likely, three children were sacrificed, as evidenced by the artifacts next to them: gold, silver, clothes, bowls of food and an extravagant headdress made from white feathers of unknown birds.

Historians suggest that the children were chosen by the Incas for their beauty. In the course of previous studies, it was found that before they were sacrificed, children were fed "elite" foods - maize and dried llama meat - for a year.

Mummy of Princess Ukok, Altai, Russia

This mummy was nicknamed the "Altai Princess" and it is assumed that Ukoka died in the 5th-3rd centuries BC. and belong to the Pazyryk culture of the Altai Territory.

Unknown arctic civilization
In 2015, 29 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, scientists discovered traces of a mysterious civilization dating back to the Middle Ages. The discovery was made in the region of Siberia, but archaeologists have established that this people was related to Persia.
The found remains were wrapped in furs, birch bark and covered with objects made of copper. Under the conditions of permafrost, bodies in such a “shell” were mummified and perfectly preserved to this day. In total, researchers found 34 small graves and 11 bodies at the site of the medieval site.

At first, only men and children were found, but in August 2017, scientists discovered that there was also a woman's body among the mummies. Scientists have nicknamed her the Polar Princess. Researchers believe that this girl belonged to a high class, since she is so far the only representative of the fair sex discovered during these excavations.

Remains of World War I soldiers, Alps

80 soldiers who died during the First World War were discovered in 2014 in the melted Alpine ice. Almost all of them are well preserved, having turned into mummies.

Together with the soldiers, photographs, maps and even products were found that were perfectly preserved in the cold. The soldiers were buried with military honors.

Husband and wife Marcellin and Francine Dumoulin, Alps, Switzerland

The Dumoulin couple disappeared in the mountains on August 15, 1942. Two months later, the police and rescuers stopped looking for them. The seven orphans left without parents were distributed to orphanages. The bodies of their missing parents were found 75 years later, when the glacier began to melt. Swiss police officials said the remains were found in a glacier at an altitude of 2615 meters and officially identified. Monique Gautschy, the couple's youngest daughter, was called in for identification. The final confirmation of personalities is made after a DNA test. The pair were found with a backpack, watch and a book.

Scientists find animals and insects in the ice and permafrost that inhabited the earth in ancient times. Among them, of particular interest are large warm-blooded animals - mammoths, woolly rhinos. The discovered remains help to understand how these animals survived in the harsh glacial climate.

frozen mammoth

On the islands of the Novosibirsk archipelago, a well-preserved carcass of a female mammoth was found. In addition to soft tissues, the researchers got another valuable "surprise" - the blood of a mammoth. It did not freeze at a temperature of minus 10 degrees, and scientists suggest that this feature helped the mammoths survive in the cold.

The ice cover of the Earth is disappearing, and at a very rapid pace. For example, in Glaiter National Park in Montana, due to climate change, the glaciers threaten to completely melt by 2030. Since 1850, the total number of large glaciers in the area has been reduced from 150 to 25.

However, this serious problem also has a downside: such natural processes lift the veil of secrecy over unique finds that have been buried in the thickness of the ice for centuries. And with each new discovery, humanity is getting closer to unraveling the mysteries of both the past and the future.

Here are some incredible discoveries made thanks to global warming and melting ice.

Note in a bottle

1. A note dated 1959 was left in a bottle buried under a pile of stones near the polar glacier. It contained a message that proved what a huge impact global warming and climate change had on nature.

In 1959, American geologist Paul Walker placed a note in a bottle and buried it under a pile of rocks on Ward Hunt Island in Canada. The message contained a simple instruction: whoever finds the note should measure the distance from the place where the bottle was located to the edge of the glacier.

In the summer of 2013, Warwick Vincent and Dennis Sarrazin, scientists at the Laval University Research Station, discovered a message left by Walker 54 years ago. Scientists fulfilled, in fact, the last will of the geologist, because. Walker died a month after he buried the bottle in the rocks on the island. What they found was truly shocking. In 1959, the distance measured by Walker from these rocks to the edge of the glacier was 51 meters. And already in 2013, this distance was 122 meters. Vincent and Sarrazin argue that this difference between the two measurements is indicative of the dramatic effects of ongoing global warming.

woolly mammoth

2. Two men lift the well-preserved carcass of a baby mammoth, which was accidentally dug up by a bulldozer from the permafrost in 1977.

In 2010, in Siberia, perhaps the most unexplored region of Russia, a female woolly mammoth was found weighing one ton and named Yuka. After lying in the Siberian permafrost for 39,000 years, the mammoth's body was so well preserved that even wool and muscle tissue were visible, and for the first time in the history of anthropology, scientists were able to take blood samples from a prehistoric animal.

The researchers suggested that, most likely, the mammoth got stuck in a swamp and died there, because. the lower part of his body was left intact thanks to the surrounding ice. Despite the fact that some parts of the mammoth's body have completely disappeared, such a find is of unprecedented scientific value.

Scientists in South Korea said that thanks to DNA samples obtained from Yuki's body, they now have a chance to clone mammoths, thus resurrecting the entire species. If this does happen, researchers will no longer have to travel to Siberia in search of woolly mammoths.

Mummy Ötzi

In September 1991, two German tourists stumbled upon an unusual find: well-preserved remains of a human body that had been frozen into ice. Then the tourists mistook the ancient corpse for the remains of a climber who recently died in the mountains. However, after the radiocarbon method of research, scientists found that the mummified person was no less than 5000 years old. The discovery was unique in its kind, because never before have scientists restored a completely untouched by time corpse of the Chalcolithic era.

The researchers named the ice man Ötzi (or Ötzi, Otzi), because. the last refuge of the mummy was the Ötztal valley. For many years, scientists have pieced together information about the lifestyle, language and cause of death of a mysterious ancient man.

The undigested remains of his last meal remained in Ötzi's stomach, indicating that he died quite suddenly. Later, thanks to x-rays, it was found that an arrowhead was stuck in the mummy's shoulder, and this proved that 5000 years ago, Ötzi was killed in a fight with the enemy.

Shortly after his death, Ötzi's body was most likely bound in ice and covered with snow, which saved him from predators. And since the corpse lay in a deep ravine, it was not damaged due to the movements of the glacier.

According to National Geographic, DNA analysis has proven that the ancient ice man has at least 19 living relatives and was a descendant of the inhabitants of Corsica or Sardinia.

The mummy of Ötzi was exhibited at the South Tyrolean Museum of Archeology in Bolzano, Italy.

hidden treasures

4. A bag of diplomatic mail was found in 2012 at the crash site of an Indian plane in the Mont Blanc region.

One day, a French climber, during his ascent to Mont Blanc, unexpectedly found a treasure. It was a metal box protruding from the surface of the Bosson Glacier. The box contained rows of pouches marked "Made in India". Each bag contained approximately 100 gems - rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

This box of jewels is said to have been valued at $377,000.

But instead of disappearing forever with these untold riches, the honest climber gave them to the police. Then the jewels were deposited with the administration of the city of Chamonix in eastern France, where local authorities tried to unravel the mystery of their origin.

And the hint was hidden in the stamp - "made in India." By some mystical coincidence, two major plane crashes of Indian aircraft occurred in the region of the Mont Blanc glaciers.

One of the crashes, which occurred in 1950 on the way to Geneva, claimed the lives of 48 people. And 16 years later, the pilot of a Boeing 707 flying to New York via Geneva and London, miscalculating the flight altitude, crashed into the top of Mont Blanc. All 117 passengers and crew were killed.

As a result of the crash of the Boeing 707, a funnel formed on the side of the mountain, in which the wreckage of the aircraft and other things belonging to the passengers are still located. Among other things, a bag with diplomatic mail, shown in the photo above, was found among personal belongings.

Experts believe that the treasures may be associated with a family jewelry business, located in London.

giant virus

5. Recently, scientists stumbled upon an amazing find - a giant virus more than 30,000 years old, which was in the permafrost near the Kolyma River in Russia.

As French biologist Jean-Michel Claverie of the University of Aix-Marseille, who discovered the virus, points out: “There is a small chance that the pathogenic microbes that infected ancient people could be reborn and infect modern humanity. These pathogens can be common bacteria (treatable with antibiotics) or drug-resistant bacteria and even dangerous viruses. If they died out a long time ago, then our immune system is not ready to resist them.”

One way or another, but today it is the largest virus described by science that “hunts” for amoebas. Megavirus lures amoeba, pretending to be a "delicious" bacterium. Amoeba, absorbing such a bait, becomes a victim of the virus, multiplying it into many copies.

Remains of World War I soldiers

6. The remains of two Austrian soldiers found near the Presena Glacier in 2012, Italy.

As the glaciers melt near the small Italian mountain village of Peio, people continue to find the remains of soldiers, as well as other artifacts from the First World War.

In a battle known as the "White War", soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire fought Italian forces for dominance over the highlands. Historians estimate that hundreds of thousands of soldiers died on the battlefield during the battle, many of whom could not stand the extreme weather conditions. The temperature then dropped below 22 degrees, and the snow avalanches, which were dubbed the "white death", swallowed up entire companies. Many of the soldiers who fought in that place have gone missing.

And now, nearly a century later, 80 mummified bodies buried under a melting glacier have surfaced. In 2004, a mountain guide witnessed a gruesome sight: the corpses of three Austro-Hungarian army soldiers killed in 1918 were sticking upside down from a wall of ice. The frozen remains were found near San Matteo at an altitude of 3658 meters above sea level.

And in 2013, the bodies of two more soldiers were found in the burial pit of the melting Presen glacier (pictured above). Since the bodies had been lying under a layer of ice for a long time, their hair and even skin tissues were quite well preserved. Soldiers' personal belongings were also found in the glacier, such as a love note addressed to "Maria".

The ice of our planet holds many secrets that we have yet to unravel. What was found is amazing, and only spurs interest for further searches.

giant virus

Researchers from the University of Marseille (France), together with Russian colleagues from the Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems, have found a new virus in the permafrost.

Ice Maiden Inca Ice Maiden, Peru

The mummy of a girl of 14-15 years old was found on the slope of the Nevado Sabankaya volcano in the vastness of Peru, moreover, in 1999. Experts suggest that this teenager and several other children were selected for sacrifice because of their beauty.
Three mummies were found, which, unlike the embalmed Egyptian "colleagues", were subjected to deep freezing. The body of a seven-year-old boy was also studied, but scientists have not yet decided to examine the remains of a six-year-old girl. Probably, it was once struck by lightning, which may affect the accuracy of the results of the study.

Most likely, three children were sacrificed, as evidenced by the artifacts next to them: gold, silver, clothes, bowls of food and an extravagant headdress made from white feathers of unknown birds.

Mummy of Princess Ukok, Altai

This mummy was nicknamed the “Altai Princess” and it is assumed that Ukoka died in the 5th-3rd centuries BC and belongs to the Pazyryk culture of the Altai Territory.

Mummy of a boy, Greenland

Iceman, Alps

Juanita from the Peruvian Andes

Frozen Mammoth

Mammoth Yuka

Fragments of Sigismund Levanevsky's plane found in the Arctic

Remains of World War I soldiers in the Alps

For several decades, military paraphernalia has flowed down with the melting ice. Among the relics found are letters and poems that were never opened and did not have time to fall into the hands of loved ones. There are about 80 mummy soldiers, most of them were wounded.

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