Longest Polish river reveals secrets amid drought

WARSAW: Archaeologists are having a field day in Poland’s longest river, the Vistula, which because of a drought has hit a record low water level allowing them to uncover a treasure trove of ancient artifacts.
“There are pieces of marble and stoneware and fragments of fountains, window sills, columns, concrete slabs, cannonballs,” said Hubert Kowalski, a researcher at Warsaw University’s archaeological institute.
Dressed in orange and green rubber hip waders, the archaeologists slosh around the Vistula, whose level has fallen to just 40 centimetres in downtown Warsaw — the lowest in over 200 years.
Armed with detectors of all sorts, sonars and sub-bottom profilers — tools for identifying layers of sediment — they search for curious objects from aboard their inflatable boat.
The large sandbanks poking out of the water give the river the air of a barren desert landscape. But for the archaeologists, it’s paradise.
Even the bulldozers are able to follow them into areas that are normally off limits for the heavy machines.