Hungersteine is visible again
Hungersteine are becoming visible. Large stones, their name "Hunger Stones" linked to the risk of famine during droughts, and often inscribed with dates or other markings commemorating periods of low water. They remain hidden for decades.
But water levels in Europe’s biggest rivers are falling towards record lows, including the Rhine, Europe’s busiest inland waterway, and this Hunger Stone, with the dates 1892 and 2003, is a natural rock water level marker near 15th century Leckwitz on the Elbe river, in Saxony eastern Germany.
While a town along the Elbe in Lower Saxony, northern Germany, has a stone carved with:
Geht dieser Stein unter, wird das Leben wieder bunter.
If this stone goes under, life will become more colourful again.
Photo credit: Hungersteine bei Leckwitz, Murkel267, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons