Sometimes the destructive forces of nature remind people of how many interesting things are hidden from their eyes. It doesn't matter if the artifacts lie deep under the sand or the seabed, or are under a thin layer of soil, the riot of the elements can at one moment "show them before the eyes of man."
1. Salo from the Second World War
Fat of Saint Cyrus
For decades on the coast near the Scottish city of St. Cyrus, during violent storms, lard was washed away, which ended up on the seabed after a shipwreck during the Second World War. Just recently, four new pieces of bacon were washed on the beach, retaining the shape of the long wooden barrels in which they were transported.
It is believed that a sunken ship is systematically destroyed with each storm, after which another part of its cargo is in the water. Locals are well aware of this feature and claim that the lard is good enough to be used now, despite the shell crust.
Promotional video:
2. Balesher
Ruins on the beach
In 2005, a severe storm hit Scotland. During it, a tragic event happened - five members of one family were killed on Benbekul Island. However, at the same time, the elements also revealed ruins that had been hidden for 2000 years. After the storm, the residents of Balesher Island were stunned to find ancient structures right on the beach. Archaeologists have stated that these are two round houses from the Iron Age era.
3. Shipwreck in Alabama
Remains of the ship's hull
Three hurricanes gradually exposed the remains of the ship's hull off the coast of Alabama. As a result, an old wooden ship, which sank many decades ago, completely appeared in people's eyes. Scientists still cannot determine what kind of ship it is. Local historians believe that this is a schooner from the First World War called "Rachel". Others believe it is an unknown civil war vessel.
If this is Rachel, then another question arises: what kind of cargo was transported by the schooner. It was built to transport timber, but the main years of its "career" fell on the days of Prohibition. The three-masted 45-meter wooden ship, built during the war, was destroyed in a fire after a drunken crew in 1923.
4. Storms of Connaught
Coast of the Irish province of Connacht
Storms hitting the coast of the Irish province of Connacht in 2014, leading to an archaeological tragedy. A number of valuable historical treasures have been damaged or lost, but new intriguing finds have been discovered. The two cemeteries, which are part of a medieval monastery found in the 1990s, have completely risen to the surface of the earth.
Also found were previously sunken houses from the 18th and 19th centuries and a 6,000-year-old Neolithic swamp, in which archaeologists found ancient food waste. This provided invaluable information about the diet of our ancestors.
5. Bombs of World War II
Bombs on the coast
In 2014, unusually strong storms in the UK caused flooding on the Thames. As a result, strong tides and winds threw 244 bombs from the Second World War onto the Thames. Many of them are still lying on the shore, half-buried in the sand.
6. Mystical mill
Windmill south carolina
Some of South Carolina's historical past was discovered quite by accident after a flood ravaged Richland County. Archaeologists have studied with interest the wooden beams and steel nails discovered after the water level fell.
This discovery was exciting because it opened the veil of secrecy over how people used to live in this area. These were the remains of a wooden mill that stood on the stream. However, experts do not know what was produced there in the early 18th century (this is the age of this mill).
7. The teenager in the tree
Murder uncovered by a tree
After a coastal storm toppled a 215-year-old tree in Ireland, the skeleton of a murdered medieval teenager was found at its roots. Someone accidentally had a beech on a grave in about 1800 and the tree sprouted down through the remains of the young man. When the tree fell, the root system tore the upper half of the body and lifted it out of the grave, while the lower half of the skeleton remained in the ground. Bones told a pretty interesting story.
The young man, 17-20 years old, ate well enough to belong to the upper class, but he had a spinal disease due to hard physical labor at a very young age. The teenager died from two knife blows.
8. Find in Galway
Fossilized stumps
After storms lashed the coast of the Irish city of Galway for several days, a landscape of deep antiquity emerged from oblivion. About 7,500 years ago, the water rose so quickly that they buried a large forest of oaks, pines and birches beneath them.
Not only were fossilized stumps discovered thousands of years later, some of which were nearly a hundred years old at the time they sank, researchers also found evidence that humans lived in this place during the Neolithic era.
9. Underwater forest
50,000 year old forest
There is a real time capsule just off the coast of Alabama. In marine sediments without access to oxygen, a whole primeval forest of … 50,000 years old has been preserved. Hurricane Katrina moved the sands from the seabed and exposed the stumps of huge cypress trees.
The remains of the ancient forest are really huge and are so well preserved that you can smell the fresh sap of cypress when cutting these trees raised from the bottom. The girth of some trunks is 2 meters and on their cuts one can count thousands of years of tree rings.
10. Ichthyosaurus
Ichthyosaur bones
For Christmas in Dorset, the fossil hunters received a valuable gift. In 2014, after a coastal storm, the bones of an ichthyosaur were exposed, preserved in exceptional condition. The size of the predatory marine reptile reached 1.5 meters and it looked like a dolphin.
Professional hunters for fossils had to hurry, as the remains of the ichthyosaurus were in danger - another powerful storm was approaching. As a result, in just 8 hours, the skeleton of a 200 million-year-old predator was taken to safety.